Barça-Madrid, more than just football

Real Madrid 1; FCB Barcelona, 0. Spain's modernity and openess versus old-fashioned Catalan nationalism. It is what one may deduce from one of the Spanish sport newspapers, Marca, as one of its journalists claimed in an interview on BBC last night. "Now the city of Madrid is much more dynamic and open than Barcelona, where they don't accept people not born there and where it is more difficult to get into the local society". It is just a couple of hours since the comment was made on BBC 4, but many will react against it in Catalonia shortly.
Arguably, the idea is quite right, but both sides take advantage again of the situation and use football in their own political interest. Using sport for political purposes, particularly when it regards one of the Spain's most important problems as the nationalisims, is an irresponsible position. If the BBC had interviewed any of TV3, the regional Catalan television, reporters, he'd put it this way: "It's been a victory of Spanish central power and establishment, which denies Catalan devolution and regional culture and history, over pluralism and the attempts of a nation, Catalonia, who fights to survive". They could argue Franco's regime support to Real Madrid as a symbol of the nation prosperity and so on.
Marca has a long record doing something similar and that irritates thousands of Spaniards across the country: for the famous paper, Spain means Real Madrid and Real Madrid means Spain. Tension and anger amongst Sevilla, Valencia, Atlético de Madrid or Barcelona supporters mounts as they use the best sold paper in Spain as Real Madrid's pure propaganda, something they deny. We know quite well each other in Spain. Please, don't use the noble passions of sport for dirty politics. Not again. Don't repeat the mistakes of the past. It was just one more game in La Liga. Just another clásico. Real Madrid, 1; FCB Barcelona, 0. Just three points.