Expected as it was, the Spanish national anthem was tremendously booed by both the Catalan and Basque supporters as the Spanish monarchy took their box seats at Mestalla stadium for the King’s Cup final. The jeers and whistles which greeted the anthem were so loud that not even the thundering power at which the anthem was played could hide the obvious disapproval of the vast majority of those who attended the match.
However, the public Spanish television TVE had a brilliant plan to prevent this “national shame” to be broadcast live: just before the anthem was played they went to their reporters in Barcelona and Bilbao to see the fans gathered there. Then, TVE broadcast a recording of it during half time, but with all the ambient sounds from the stands shamelessly filtered out. As you can see in this video, TVE’s audio editing skills have nothing to envy to those employed during the censorship and NoDo-style TV we suffered during Franco dictatorship.The fuss created about the issue has quickly spread on all newspapers and has resulted in TVE sacking its sporting director, because of this allegedly “human” error.
At Mestalla, FC Barcelona conquered his 25th King’s Cup in what can be the first step to a possible triple this season, but the match will most probably be remembered by the loud boo given to the Spanish monarchy and anthem and, specially, by the clumsiness of TVE at trying to cover it up.
(Article publicat a www.cataloniablog.com)
