The genie of the lamp, by Sergi Pàmies

One of Joan Laporta’s skills: not losing his smile no matter what the circumstances. It will be a virtue, but in times of institutional disarray like the current one, many culés would appreciate some expressive restraint. Laporta has always fought catastrophism and campaigned in favor of illusion. The caricature of “Screw it, we’re not so bad!” continues to define him. If Laporta were the captain of the Titanic, he would accuse the iceberg of sociological Madridism rather than admit blatant ineptitude at the helm of the ship.

Slave to defectively tendentious communication, the club has activated its umpteenth smokescreen. Doctrine: resort to regulatory and legal charlatanism to avoid having to admit the flagrant non-compliance with deadlines. Opacity aggravates the mortgage of the future. The most constant – often legitimately ambiguous – opponent, Víctor Font, should rename his platform “Yes – it is an emergency – at the present.” The dialectical pirouettes of shysters no longer convince either the followers of Laporta or those of Font, resigned to the fact that the new board – Xavi, Jordi – will swallow up part of their electoral program. The Great Juggler is not satisfied with spinning two or three plates at the same time and adds difficulty (the new Camp Nou, etc.) to his feat until the plates have begun to fall.

If you enjoy Barbastro’s game, are you being complicit in the mess?

Another president with so many open fronts would try to maintain a certain stage compunction, even if it were feigned. Seeing him in Barbastro, on the other hand, exultant and smiling, Laporta reminded me of the Genie with the wonderful lamp (the one from Disney, not the one from Arabian Nights). The Genie is a comic and cosmic spirit who has the power to grant wishes when someone scrubs the lamp looking for desperate solutions to earthly difficulties. The difference is that the Genius complies, while Laporta postpones, delays and twists his power. He is capable of making any desperate fool believe that he has granted him a wish and an illusion that, in reality, are the projection of a remote fantasy of uncertain fulfillment. The etymology of delusion does not bode well: it comes from Latin illusiowhat does it mean deceptionwith the derivative – I don’t know which is worse – of derision. But if you manage to forget the institutional ineptitude and enjoy Barbastro’s party, are you being complicit in the management mess?

In these days of flogging justified by the non-registration of Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor, there are moments in which the president’s complacency and his ability to deny reality awaken in me a perverse sympathy that, of course, I will deny having felt. While the opposition denounces – at a good time? – an alarmingly erratic management, it is still fascinating that, in response, the same ones who circulate as truths what are only wishes want to transmit trust and credibility. However, and as if we analyze the rational diagnoses on the health of the club we will end up asking for euthanasia, we look askance at the genie in the lamp and, although we suspect that he is a bit of a trickster, we wonder if, as has happened other times, he will be capable to overcome a critical situation to which the disaffection of many culés has also contributed.

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