Barcelona To Be Excluded From La Liga

If Catalonia gains independence Barcelona would not be able to compete in La Liga according to the president of the Spanish League Javier Tebas and the country's sports minister Miguel Cardenal.

Cardenal made this statement last week concerning how the spilt of Catalonia from Spain would affect Barca, he said “FC Barcelona would be unable to carry on competing in the Spanish league. It's absurd to think that if Catalonia becomes independent, the club could ask to be registered by the Spanish federation”.

It was after this comment that the Spanish League president Javier Tebas tweeted on Monday that “If Spain splits, so too does La Liga, let's hope we never reach that absurd situation”.

Cardenal also went further to say that Catalonian Independence would seriously weaken Barcelona's ability to continue as a European super power with the club's ejection from La Liga massively reducing its income from television. He said: “The sporting aspiration of the Catalan clubs would be different. Barca, for example, would be a team like Ajax, Celtic or Standard Liege and would be doing well to get to the quarter-finals of the Champions League. It is not an argument based on scaremongering but on reality”.

Although Many Barcelona fans have argued that just as Welsh clubs compete in the English leagues so Barcelona and the city's other first division side Espanyol would ultimately be allowed to play in Spain as they are also confident that La Liga would not want to lose the money Barcelona brings in.

Regional elections in Catalonia are expected to hold on September 27 2015 and have been turned into an unofficial referendum with those parties that support a break away from Spain united in a bid to force the issue if, between them, they win a majority of seats in the Catalan Parliament.