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Lamine plays on the left : And at Spanish president has his back

https://www.politico.eu/

By Hassen Lorgat 

 

I have seen Lamine play on TV as a 9 year old and he was mesmerising and when he got his break by Xavi, the public loved this talent.

He can play on the left wing, but he is more accustomed to operating as a left-footed right winger for both Barcelona and the Spanish national team. This is how we must see his innocent sharing of a Palestinian flag which moved many.

Coach Hansi Flick spoke to Lamine Yamal about the Palestinian flag incident, and the author describes it as more of a reprimand than a celebration.: “This I don’t normally like. I spoke with him. I said if he wants this, it is his decision. He is old enough. He’s 18 years old.”

He is an 18 year old from a tough barrio, some 32 km north of Barcelona. He learned his craft on the streets of Rocafonda, a working-class neighborhood in Mataró where about half of Rocafonda’s 11,000 residents are classified as “at risk of poverty,” with rundown flats lacking basic amenities. Evictions are a daily occurrence, and the average rent is about $1,334 per month—unaffordable for many. Al Jazeera reported that this area is home to around 88 different nationalities, and Arabic halal butchers are common. His nimble feet speak for more than just himself but for others.

photo:Messi with baby Lamine

When he scores, he makes a ‘304’ sign with his fingers (the postal code for Rocafonda: 08304). This is a deliberate act of socializing his influence—using his global platform to put a forgotten, working-class neighborhood on the map and give his community visible pride and self-confidence.

His roots shaped him so, when he waved the flag, he knew what he was doing.

The player and the club

It would seem everytime, some advances are made within the club or its environs to support Palestinian liberation there is some push back. In this case, the response was predictable as I will detail.

Lamine’s solidarity vs violent threats

FC Barcelona’s leadership left Lamine Yamal with no institutional support. Instead, they chose to grovel at the feet of Israel. They issued a weak-kneed statement claiming that Lamine’s action was “not planned in advance by any party associated with FC Barcelona, but rather occurred spontaneously.” Joan Laporta left the young attacker defenseless,  – a gap the Israel’s so-called Defense Minister, Israel Katz, used to bash the youngster on X: “Lamine Yamal chose to incite against Israel and foment hatred while our soldiers are fighting the terrorist organization Hamas — an organization that massacred, raped, burned, and murdered Jewish children, women, and elderly on October 7.”

It was left to Manchester City coach and Barça legend Pep Guardiola to stand up for the young player: “Lamine should be proud of what he did; he is now the talk of the world.” In contrast to the club’s president, the country’s president, Pedro Sánchez, responded in Spanish to the warlord in a post on X:

“those who consider waving “the flag of a state” to be inciting hatred “have either lost their judgment or been blinded by their own ignominy.” Lamine, the president said, had “only expressed the solidarity with Palestine felt by millions of Spaniards. Another reason to be proud of him.

This is another reason to be proud of him.”

Sanchez was alluding to the role the youngster will play in the forthcoming World Cup in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

Islamophobia

Lamine Yamal is a leader and recently called out Spanish fans who insulted his religion pre-World Cup friendly against Egypt on March 31, 2026,. These fans subjected the Egyptian team to loud, anti-Muslim chants, including: “If you don’t jump, you’re Muslim.”

Lamine, who is Muslim, condemned them on Instagram: “Those chants were aimed at the opposing team and not something personal against me, but as a Muslim, they are still disrespectful and intolerable. To those who chant these things: using a religion as mockery in a stadium shows ignorance and racism.” His intervention sparked a police investigation and disciplinary proceedings by FIFA which we do not know where this is at.

Messi, Aitana, and Abde

There were others who tried to put Palestine on the map, but their efforts were either ignored or censored. These forms of insult are painful.

I recall how angry I was as an activist and a Culé  (supporter of Barça, ) when I read how the club leadership had censored the 20 year winger Abdessamad “Abde” Ezzalzouli in April 2022.  Abde was forced to delete an Instagram story supporting Palestinian rights which detailed the clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. 

 

The artist Lowkey rightly pointed out the duplicity by including in his post a photo of Joan Laporta meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog at his official residence in 2021.

Aitana

Others got off lightly, such as our star Aitana Bonmatí, who is a progressive and conscientious person. She has long supported UN bodies. Aitana Bonmatí, the 2023 World Cup winner, Ballon d’Or Féminin winner for three consecutive years (2023, 2024, and 2025), and multiple-time FIFA Women’s Player of the Year, showed her true humanity when she used her platform to support Palestine. In May 2024, during the genocide, she shared the viral “All Eyes on Rafah” AI-generated image on her Instagram Stories. The slogan and campaign went viral after an Israeli airstrike in the southern city of Gaza killed dozens of people, including children. This is not to suggest that the AI-generated campaign was without its problems—in particular, that it sanitized the gruesome reality on the ground. Even with a sanitised view, Aitana, was not publicly rebuked or left without support—unlike Lamine.

Messi

A few years before that, the legendary Messi was simply ignored and marginalized in this aspect of his life by a club and media that claimed to love UNICEF.

The historic FC Barcelona-UNICEF partnership, launched in 2006 under President Joan Laporta and formalized at the UN, originally saw the club pay €1.5 million annually to feature the UNICEF logo on their shirts, promoting children’s welfare causes. But when Messi truly endorsed the message, he stood alone.

I wrote about this incident in 2022, in an article published by the Palestine Chronicle, noting that the club did not even embrace nor endorse a fairly moderate UNICEF campaign. His message was briefly seen, then it all went quiet. Messi wrote, in both English and Arabic:

“I am terribly saddened by the images coming from the conflict between Israel and Palestine, where violence has already claimed so many young lives and injured countless children. Children did not create this conflict, but they are paying the ultimate price. This cycle of senseless violence must stop. We must reflect on the consequences of military conflicts, and children must be protected.”

(photo shared by Messi)

Messi, who has nearly 68 million Facebook followers, received no backing.

‘My take was simple: the international mainstream media, including the daily sports papers in Spain, were complicit in systematically silencing Palestinian suffering and struggles for liberation. I pointed out the stark double standard—downplaying Palestinian suffering compared to other conflicts like Ukraine.

I wrote: “Even our beloved Barça TV Live, which featured Messi’s exploits on the field, was spineless in its collusion in the censorship of Palestine. They were censoring not Messi, but Palestine.”

Finally, I reaffirmed the power of international grassroots organizing, which was beginning to win the day by isolating genocidal states like Israel. This was the space that Lamine occupied.

I share these examples to point out that if anyone has to apologize to the global fans of Barça and football, it is Laporta—not for appeasing Israel, but for his complicity.

The Slide from Progressivism

It has been a long time in the making, but under Joan Laporta, FC Barcelona has become more conservative—if not reactionary. Laporta is not solely responsible, but he is central to the shift. A onetime Catalan independence politician, he has embraced the Zionist path to national sovereignty and autonomy.

Laporta waving a Different Flag

A now-familiar photo by Lowkey shows a proud Laporta standing alongside the Israeli president—just one of his many public associations with Zionist leaders. Who could forget his role as a useful idiot, trying to convince the world that the Israeli regime is loved by Catalans? Meanwhile, in February 2023, Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau—whom The Guardian once called the world’s most radical mayor—scrapped the city’s twin-city relationship with Tel Aviv.

Laporta:Israeli diplomats presented FC Barcelona’s president Laporta with an Israeli flag on February 16, 2023.

That relationship had been in place since 1998, when both cities jointly signed a twinning deal with Gaza City. Colau told the public that Israel is guilty of “apartheid” and a “flagrant and systematic violation of human rights” against Palestinians.

So when Manchester United came to town, Laporta gave them Barça paraphernalia while members of the Israeli embassy handed him their flag.

Spineless Leadership

In this recent champions celebration and Lamine flying the flag, the club’s leadership wrote a press statement in Hebrew to its Israeli fans:

— “We sincerely appreciate the Israeli fan community, the Israeli soccer players, and your continued support of the club over the years.” Laporta emphasized that the club intended to honor its commitment to excellent relations with the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

Nothing was said about the Israeli Football Federation stealing Palestinian football fields and teams in violation of FIFA rules. The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) and human rights organizations have extensively documented the killing of over 400 Palestinian football players and the destruction of hundreds of sports facilities since late 2023. The PFA has also campaigned against the Israeli Football Association for permitting clubs to operate in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank—a clear violation of FIFA’s territorial integrity rules.

On FC Barcelona’s website or social media pages, I could not find any statement of support—in English, Arabic, or Catalan—for the victims of the genocide in Gaza or for fans in Lebanon. Nor have I found any dissenting view from the executive board regarding Laporta posing with the Israeli flag.

Laporta, the Genocider?

I truly believe that Laporta belongs in the dock for supporting Israel and the genocide it perpetrates against Palestinians. He stood with the flag of a state that many now accuse of genocide. The Lancet estimates roughly 75,200 violent deaths in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and early January 2025—approximately 42,200 of them women, children, and the elderly, comprising about 56% of total direct violent fatalities.

When Trump enters the picture, he is celebrated by his sectarian supporters. The Jerusalem Post ran the headline: “Barcelona’s famous soccer team sends Israel a message of support.”

That was back when the iron fist of genocide had not yet been fully revealed. The world has moved on. South Africa, and Spain in particular, have played progressive roles alongside a few other countries in the Hague Group.

The Ghost of Josep Sunyol

One wonders what Josep Sunyol i Garriga would think about this crop of leaders. A Catalan lawyer, prominent left-wing politician with Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, journalist, and president of FC Barcelona, Sunyol was a staunch defender of Catalan identity and anti-fascism. He was tragically executed by Franco’s troops near Madrid on August 6, 1936. The current leadership’s recent attempts to remember him come without any strong commitment to anti-fascism.

Even the recognition of Sunyol was a tortured, long road, peppered with compromises to the Franco regime—such as when, on the club’s centenary in 1971, Barça gave General Franco and others a medal. Some justify this as a necessary sacrifice to ensure the club’s survival and avoid repression or banning.

Today, the club officially refers to Josep Suñol as “the Martyr President” and has named a section of Camp Nou’s seating (the presidential box) after him. But this gesture is hollow as long as the current president embraces those who are fugitives from international law and stand accused of perpetrating genocide.

More Than a Club No More

In conclusion, I return to the tragedy of FC Barcelona—my club. It has drifted away from its organizing slogan, “més que un club” (more than a club), and become just another money-chasing institution. Historically, Barça was seen as a promoter of local ownership, fan ownership, respect for indigenous cultures, and a spirit of republicanism that was also open and internationalist.

We see moments of that spirit still, but the shine has faded. It is now left to the players and the fans to reclaim the club. There is hope in some players—Aitana Bonmatí, Lamine Yamal, and others.

Young Lamine has won two Ligas (some say three) and several cups, and he has already surpassed Ronaldo and Messi in his use of influence. Of course, times have changed, and we have helped change the ground beneath him, giving Lamine room to speak. But nothing stops him—or any of them—from saying something now.

As fans, we must speak out and organize, as we already do. Give Israel a red card. It is a long way to where Celtic FC’s Green Brigade fan group stands today—leading the “Show Israel the Red Card” campaign in response to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and attacks on Gaza.

 

Hassen Lorgat
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