MORBO – The Spanish Disease
The cultural and linguistic differences that have let Spanish football fall behind its neighbours.
Image credits:
Cover design by Doug Cheeseman, printed by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and Kings's Lynn
In 2001, Philip Ball released Morbo – The Story of Spanish Football, a tour of the political and cultural depths of Spanish football rivalries. Ball discussed everything from Basque nationalism to Franco’s legacy and Andalusian enmities. It was published again in 2011, with revised chapters on Spain’s international position after the World Cup success and how the duopoly of Real and Barca had reaffirmed itself, following glimmers of hope for sides like Deportivo (‘99/00 champions) and Valencia (‘01/02 and ‘03/04 champions). However, Spain won the World Cup again, and Morbo needs revisiting…
The concept of Morbo is the fundamental discussion point of the book, a word, that with little direct translation into English, touches on all sorts of exoticisms that Spain has been known for. Morbo can be roughly translated as a passion (often relating to sporting rivalry), a morbid fascination, a kind of lust or even a disease.
« A veces cuando ves un accidente el morbo te impide quitar la mirada. »
Sometimes when you see an accident, morbid fascination prevents you from looking away.
« El Sevilla – Betis es el partido del morbo en Andalucía. »
Sevilla Betis is the match that everybody gets excited about in Andalusia
« Paco es un imbécil pero me da mucho morbo, no se que me pasa. »
Paco is an idiot but he turns me on, I don’t know what’s wrong with me
Ball begins the book on a neutral standpoint, discussing various acts of rebellion associated with Morbo. For instance, with Johann Cruyff stating he could never manage Real Madrid as they were a club “associated with Franco”. Or with Michael Laudrup, being effectively booed out of the country following his disloyal move from Catalonia to the capital. Despite these being inarguably acts of Morbo, not every instance is as progressive and defiant. Whilst Ball celebrates the cultural depths that Spanish domestic rivalries maintain, (comparisons to the tribalist English fanbases with contrastingly few political, economic or social ties to their club spring to mind) it is worth noting that these rivalries harness potential for a much harsher and more dangerous temperament. Historically, English football has been renowned for its hooliganism, violence and mayhem at football matches was never limited to English fans, but it was particularly seen as a ‘British Disease’. This was cracked down by aggressive policing and the introduction of club membership cards in the ‘80s. Thatcher’s attack on hooliganism after Heysel all but decimated these atmospheres in English football, and we now see consistent complaints that English football culture has been sanitised and gentrified since the introduction of the Premier League. The English game has become safer, but (literally) at what price? All the while, Spanish football plods on in the opposite direction…
In May of last year, 7 Atletico fans were arrested for hanging an effigy of Real star Vinicius Jr from a bridge with a banner saying, ‘Madrid hates Real’. Despite this Klan-like behaviour being condemned by both clubs and the league, leading to arrests, it’s clear that this abuse is far from anomalous, it is part and parcel of the Morbo that lies deep within the Spanish game. The problem with maintaining what is essentially a populist cultural phenomenon is you leave the door open for the very sicknesses (Morbo) that you would have hoped a grassroots concept to avoid. LaLiga made a statement before the arrests that it felt "impotent" to tackle the issue of racism while Spanish legislation limited its actions to merely ‘detecting and reporting’ racist incidents.
Image credits:
Spanish police/AFP via @DeadlineDayLive (Twitter)
Part of the danger of fans having such deep-rooted ties to their clubs in Spain is the extent to which fans will go to attack other clubs or defend their own. Fans of Los Blancos have historically sided with Franco, specifically in dismissing talks of Catalan or Basque independence. Whilst fans of Athletic Club Bilbao have been known to blur the lines between supporting their region and resenting others: Athletic Club only employ Basque players, a policy that has seen them maintain the position as the third most successful club in Spanish history. Yet, perhaps not unrelated to this, they have been accused of both xenophobia and racism. The Basque giants highlight, quite effectively, the two sides of Spain’s unsanitised game and typify Morbo as an idea.
Former Liverpool player Luis Suarez and former Leeds United goalkeeper Kiko Casilla received eight-match bans in 2011 and 2020 respectively for racially charged language (calling opponents ‘negro’). Both Spanish native speakers contested the charges, saying they did not think the words they used counted as abuse. Edinson Cavani also faced a 3-game ban and a £100 000 fine from the FA for using the word ‘negrito’, which he has argued was not said with racist intent. These incidents have little to do with Morbo, yet they point to a structure of unsanitised competitiveness.
More than Morbo, Spanish football is full of linguistic particularities that propagate its backwardness; the ‘Lances de Juego’ argument — that what is said on the pitch stays on the pitch — is used by many within Spanish football. The Spanish phrase ‘ofendidito’ is also used to describe someone who takes offence too easily. Further, some debates rage about whether the use of the word ‘mono’ (literally: monkey) is a racial slur or whether it simply means a fool or clown. When it’s used to insult Marcelo, Vinicius and Iñaki Williams, the debate need not be taken very seriously…
Adjacent to racial issues, inevitably lies misogyny. Despite Spain’s success at the World Cup in 2023, they were without 8 players. 15 originally had boycotted the national team and been dubbed Las Quince. Yet, 7 returned due to pressure from the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) who had originally boycotted the tournament over issues of their physical and emotional health being mismanaged by the RFEF. Seemingly, misogynistic abuse runs deeply through Spanish football as Jorge Vilda, Spain’s manager has been accused (with video evidence) of groping his assistant’s breast, and Spanish football federation president Luis Rubiales was seen kissing Jenni Hermoso on the lips, non-consensually. These are not the first incidents of this sort. Rubiales has been known to ask players what colour their underwear was. On the kiss, Hermoso wrote:
“Hacemos también un llamado al Consejo Superior de Deportes para que, dentro de sus competencias, apoye y promueva activamente la prevención e intervención ante el acoso o abuso sexual, el sexism y el machismo.”
“We also call on the Senior Sports Council to use its powers to support and actively promote the prevention and intervention against instances of sexual assault, sexism, and “machismo”.
Discussions about the Spanish concept of “machismo”, which also has no direct translation, have unfortunately marred the team's success, reawakening the often-dormant footballing giant. Whilst Rubiales and Vilda have both been told to resign, it remains to be seen whether this can alter the fundamental backwardness of the Spanish game.
Martin Jacques, discussing the prevalence of racism in Spain circa 2005, said of football’s position: “Football is the fault line of racism in Europe. No other activity, be it cultural or political, commands the emotion, passion and allegiance, certainly of men, in the same way. Football is an exemplar of society: it mirrors and gives expression to society's passions and prejudices in a way that politics, for example, is, for the most part, quite unable to do. In Spain, football exacerbates these issues.”
These issues are inevitably grounded in material reality. Management and administration of the game across Europe remain oppressively white and male. This is a result of both being disproportionately occupied by those of middle-class backgrounds, unlike the game at large. As long as this fact remains it is hard to see rhetoric and fan culture changing. Spain is obviously not an anomaly amongst its neighbours, yet Spanish culture has a dangerous linguistic foundation that is allowing for increasingly serious levels of racist abuse. The Vinicius effigy should have been a crucial point of confrontation within the history of football, and an opportunity to be condemned worldwide, leading to fundamental structural change. Sadly, it was not. Spain’s reactionary culture is on a path of self-destruction that needs to be aggressively restructured, hopefully before too much damage is done. Let us hope that this isn’t done through the sanitisation of the game, as has been done in England, which did little to confront racism at large but rather swept the ugly facts of contemporary whiteness and masculinity under the rug.