Barcelona continued their 100% start to life in La Liga in bizarre circumstances, beating
Las Palmas 3-0 at an empty Camp Nou. The Catalan club had asked for the match to be postponed due to protests in the city over Catalonia’s independence referendum, in which more than 460 people have been injured.
That request was rejected and
Barcelona, threatened with a six-point deduction according to club president Josep Maria Bartomeu, took the decision to play the match behind closed doors just 20 minutes before kick-off, leaving thousands of supporters stranded outside. A statement from La Liga said the match should take place as normal because the security and safety of fans had been “guaranteed” by the Catalan police.
“We have not been able to find a way to postpone it,” Bartomeu said. “From there, all together, directors, executives and players met and we decided, exceptionally, to play the game behind closed doors. Els Mossos [the Catalan police force] told us the game could be played normally. Playing this way, with the stadium empty, the club shows its disagreement [with the decision not to postpone the game]. The league told us we would lose six points, three from today and three as a penalty.”
Barcelona 3-0 Las Palmas: La Liga – as it happened
Las Palmas had the national flag embroidered on to their match-day shirts to show their support for a united Spain while Barcelona emerged for the warmup wearing a yellow-and-red-striped shirt – the colours of the Estelada flag associated with Catalan independence. Earlier on Sunday, defender Gerard Piqué tweeted a photo of him voting in the referendum. “Together we are unstoppable defending democracy,”
he said.
