FC BARCELONA - REAL MADRID CF "EL CLASICO" 2010 - 2011 | WHICH DATE ? DON´T KNOW - YET!

I am getting plenty of emails from SFS readers asking me for the date of the FC Barcelona – Real Madrid “Clasico”: the first of the two big games in the Spanish FootballLeague season. In theory, it’s the weekend of the 27th of November & this 2010 – 2011 season the first game is at “Camp Nou”, the home ground of FC Barcelona.

Ronaldo - Messi will meet in this years "Clasico"

However there is a huge debate happening in Spain at this moment on whether to change the date to Monday 29th of November. Why? The Catalan region hold its Autonomous Parliamentary Elections on Sunday the 28th November, thus Sunday is cancelled at this moment on political & security grounds. This leaves Saturday 27th of November as an option, BUT due to election laws, there cannot be any “political” promotions or insinuations 24 hours before the election date; this is the so-called “Day of Reflection”. As we all know, the FC Barcelona – Real Madrid match is “politically” charged & a victory either way, or a spontaneous person running on the field with a political message etc ( apart from signs ) could get massive publicity & may affect the next day election results which this time around will be tight with an existing delicate local/national political balance which could break the current “equilibrium”. To add to this complex situation, ex FC Barcelona President, Joan Laporta, is on the election ticket for the “Catalonia Independent Party” & Football may influence here as well. Thus, Catalonia politicians have suggested that the FC Barcelona – Real Madrid game be moved to Monday 29th of November. Yet, many people here are not happy as many fans travel from outside of Barcelona (from all around Spain) to be at this game & will miss it due to work obligations; added to which the TVs are not happy as they wish to transmit on the weekend. BIG DILEMMA!


But there is more folks, days before Champions League will be celebrated with Real Madrid playing Tuesday 22nd Nov in Amsterdam against Ajax & thus they prefer SATURDAY, & Barça plays Wednesday 23rd of Nov in Greece & to recover more MONDAY would be great from them. In fact, FC Barcelona would like Monday for another added reason such as “marketing – brand value” in the Asian countries, while Real Madrid wishes a Saturday because it is tradition & wish to find a more “tired” Barça from Champions.


The debate goes on, but we will need to know before the 18th of November, which is the deadline date.


So to answer everyone: What is the date of this season (2010 – 2011) FC Barcelona – Real Madrid “Clasico”? One of the following options:


1. 27th of November – Saturday
2. 29th of November – Monday
or 3. 28th of November – Sunday – 21.00 hours (less likely but a last resort option)

As you can see, in Spain,  Football is a social phenomenon. Stay tuned!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for this article! It really helped me.

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