The Mossos d’Esquadra have launched an investigation following Islamophobic and xenophobic chants that were heard yesterday at the RCDE Stadium in Cornellà-El Prat (Barcelona) during the friendly football match between Spain and Egypt.
Throughout the game, which took place last night, chants of “Muslims, whoever doesn’t jump is” were heard from a section of the stands, starting around the tenth minute of the first half and recurring at other moments.
During halftime, a message on the stadium’s video scoreboard reminded spectators that “the legislation for the prevention of violence in sport prohibits and sanctions active participation in violent, xenophobic, homophobic, or racist acts.”
The General Information Division of the Mossos d’Esquadra has opened a criminal investigation and is working in coordination with the Hate and Discrimination Prosecutor’s Office, which will determine whether the incidents constitute a hate crime, according to Catalan police sources cited by EFE. The Mossos will seek to identify those who instigated the Islamophobic slogans.
If the criminal route does not proceed, the Mossos will consider potential administrative actions under Law 18/2007 against violence, racism, xenophobia, and intolerance in sport, which penalizes spectator behavior at sporting events. In this case, the Directorate General of Security Administration, under the Ministry of Interior, would be responsible for deciding whether to open a sanctioning procedure for an administrative infraction.
### Institutional Condemnation
In response to the global repercussions of the chants, institutions and political figures reacted on Wednesday with messages overwhelmingly condemning the xenophobic and racist chants heard in Cornellà “with the utmost firmness.”
José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, President of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), was the first politician to react last night after the match, posting on social media: “Everything I know about the morality of men I learned from football,” said Camus. Sport is radically incompatible with xenophobia, with hate. We cannot relativize the racist chants we heard today in the Spain-Egypt match. Intolerance is intolerable.
The CSD, along with the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training, and Sports and its head, Milagros Tolón, stated that “these behaviors are absolutely unacceptable and in no way represent the vast majority of Spanish fans, who understand and experience sport as a space of respect and coexistence.”
Minister of the Presidency, Justice, and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, said the chants “shame us as a society” and that “the far right will not leave any space free of its hate, and those who remain silent today will be complicit.” Ángel Víctor Torres, Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, called them “ultra groups cheered on by ultra politics,” while Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, noted that “what happened yesterday in Cornellà is the consequence of what the racist and xenophobic right has been feeding for years, with the complicity of a media ecosystem that today throws up its hands in horror.” He added, “It’s fascism, friends. And you don’t laugh at it, nor do you whitewash it.”
Meanwhile, the PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, stated…
