Barcelona Football Club likes to tell the world that it is more than a club. Mes que un club. It is printed on the seats at the Camp Nou, repeated in press conferences, invoked whenever the club needs to distinguish itself from the grubby commerce of modern football. It is, we are led to believe, a philosophy, an identity, a declaration of values that elevates Barcelona above the mercenary dealings of lesser institutions.
What a load of rubbish.
The Fabregas affair
I should declare an interest here. As an Arsenal supporter, I have a particular grudge against Barcelona that goes beyond the normal antipathy one reserves for Europe’s super-clubs. The sustained, public, deeply cynical campaign to unsettle and eventually acquire Cesc Fabregas remains one of the most distasteful episodes I have witnessed in professional football.
For three consecutive summers, Barcelona conducted what amounted to a siege. Not through the proper channels — or at least, not solely through them — but through a relentless campaign of public statements, “accidental” quotes, and the most brazen tapping-up imaginable. Players wearing Fabregas shirts. Coaches making knowing comments about his “inevitable” return. A club that claims to stand for something higher behaving with all the subtlety of a used-car salesman.
Fabregas, it should be noted, was not blameless. But he was young, he was being told that his childhood club wanted him back, and the pressure was immense. The primary responsibility lay with Barcelona, and they discharged that responsibility with a cynicism that would have made Machiavelli blush.
Values as marketing
The Fabregas saga was not an aberration. It was a symptom of something deeper: the gap between what Barcelona says and what Barcelona does. The club’s famous mes que un club motto was born in the Franco era, when supporting Barcelona was an act of Catalan identity and political resistance. It meant something then. It was real, rooted in history and struggle and genuine defiance.
What does it mean now? In an era of hundred-million-euro transfer fees, of commercially driven pre-season tours, of a club that accepted sponsorship from Qatar — a state with a human rights record that might charitably be described as concerning — what exactly is Barcelona more than?
When your values exist primarily as a marketing tool, when they are invoked to justify behaviour that contradicts them at every turn, when they serve as a shield against criticism rather than a guide for conduct — then those values mean nothing. Less than nothing, in fact, because at least an institution that makes no claims to moral superiority cannot be accused of hypocrisy.
Consider their Champions League encounters with Arsenal. The handball by Iniesta that went unpunished. The Van Persie red card at the Camp Nou that turned a competitive tie into a procession. Did Barcelona protest? Did they acknowledge the injustice? Of course not. They took their advantage and moved on, as any club would. Which is precisely the point — Barcelona behave exactly as any other mega-club behaves. The only difference is the self-righteous veneer they apply to the process.
The beautiful game, beautifully cynical
I should be clear: I admire Barcelona’s football. The tiki-taka era under Guardiola produced some of the most breathtaking football ever played. Messi is a genius. The academy at La Masia has been a model for youth development. In purely sporting terms, Barcelona’s achievements are extraordinary and deserve recognition.
But sporting excellence and moral authority are not the same thing, and the conflation of the two is Barcelona’s greatest trick. They play beautifully, therefore they are beautiful. They win with style, therefore they are stylish in all things. The logic doesn’t hold, and it never has.
Arsenal, for what it is worth, have their own version of this problem. The Wenger years have cultivated a self-image based on playing the right way, on developing youth, on financial responsibility. And there is truth in that image. But we have also, at times, confused playing nice football with being a nice club, and the two are not the same thing. As I explored in an earlier piece about Arsenal’s business model, the gap between the club’s public persona and its commercial reality is wider than we sometimes care to admit.
What values actually mean
Real values — the kind that matter, the kind that distinguish an institution from its competitors — are demonstrated through action, particularly when action is costly. They are visible in the decisions a club makes when nobody is watching, or when the cameras are watching and doing the right thing means sacrificing an advantage.
By this measure, Barcelona fails as consistently as any other mega-club. The aggressive pursuit of other clubs’ players. The financial mismanagement that has emerged in recent years. The willingness to bend — or break — the rules when it suits them. None of this is unusual in modern football, but then, that is precisely the point. Barcelona are not unusual. They are not exceptional. They are not more than a club.
They are a very good, very successful, very wealthy football club that plays very good football. Nothing more, nothing less. And there is no shame in that. The shame lies only in pretending otherwise, in draping commercial ambition in the language of higher purpose, in asking the world to believe that the normal rules don’t apply because you have a motto in Catalan on your stadium seats.
Mes que un club. From where I am sitting, watching a club with genuine fight and soul struggle for identity, it has never meant less.