FC Barcelona Rugby League 2008-2010

[gingerjon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Barcelona_Rugby_League

Following on from the Red Star thread, I've been doing some idle googling and, I have to say, I had completely forgotten about this, if I ever even noticed the existence of an actual, proper, in-the-sports-club Barcelona RL side.

Does anyone have any further details?

[The Rocket]

25 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Barcelona_Rugby_League

Following on from the Red Star thread, I've been doing some idle googling and, I have to say, I had completely forgotten about this, if I ever even noticed the existence of an actual, proper, in-the-sports-club Barcelona RL side.

Does anyone have any further details?

2008 - 2010 says it all really.

[pahars]

I can vaguely remember people talking on here about it. It was a reasonably exciting prospect at the time. 
 

Just after that Barca had their first (of many) financial crises and cut funding to a lot of their amateur teams. Including binning the 80 year olds baseball section, which caused a big stink, so I’ve got a feeling RL would have the same way. 

[Eddie]

42 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Barcelona_Rugby_League

Following on from the Red Star thread, I've been doing some idle googling and, I have to say, I had completely forgotten about this, if I ever even noticed the existence of an actual, proper, in-the-sports-club Barcelona RL side.

Does anyone have any further details?

Get them in League One. 

[gingerjon]

10 hours ago, Eddie said:

Get them in League One. 

Now, now ..

[gingerjon]

10 hours ago, pahars said:

I can vaguely remember people talking on here about it. It was a reasonably exciting prospect at the time. 
 

Just after that Barca had their first (of many) financial crises and cut funding to a lot of their amateur teams. Including binning the 80 year olds baseball section, which caused a big stink, so I’ve got a feeling RL would have the same way. 

Yes, part of the prompt for looking at Barca was watching the Liga F game between their women and Real Madrid and the commentator said that only the women's football department and one other (which I don't think was the men's football department) make a profit, the rest are subsidised in some way.

[Eddie]

17 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Yes, part of the prompt for looking at Barca was watching the Liga F game between their women and Real Madrid and the commentator said that only the women's football department and one other (which I don't think was the men's football department) make a profit, the rest are subsidised in some way.

They have a roller hockey team apparently, weird that they binned off basketball and kept that. 

[pahars]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

They have a roller hockey team apparently, weird that they binned off basketball and kept that. 

They binned Baseball, which was a niche sport, but had been played since the 1930’s and had several hundred junior players. The Basketball section is still going and one of the most successful in Europe. 
 

Roller hockey is pretty big in Catalonia and pockets of Italy and Portugal but pretty much unheard of in the rest of Spain and Europe. 
 

 

[pahars]

3 hours ago, gingerjon said:

Yes, part of the prompt for looking at Barca was watching the Liga F game between their women and Real Madrid and the commentator said that only the women's football department and one other (which I don't think was the men's football department) make a profit, the rest are subsidised in some way.

It’s questionable whether Barca’s approach is sustainable. All the big football clubs used to be multisports but Real Madrid cut down to just football and basketball and Atletico, Valencia and Espanyol cut everything else years ago. 

[Damien]

Some of these multi sport teams are that in name only and receive zero funding. My recollection of FC Barcelona RL was that they fell into this category.

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

Some of these multi sport teams are that in name only and receive zero funding. My recollection of FC Barcelona RL was that they fell into this category.

Red Star do as well I think, from what I recall of listening to Colin Kleyweg being interviewed anyway. Still it must be a massive boost to their profile. 

[DI Keith Fowler]

5 hours ago, Eddie said:

Red Star do as well I think, from what I recall of listening to Colin Kleyweg being interviewed anyway. Still it must be a massive boost to their profile. 

I follow them on Twitter it's quite funny to see a game on what looks like a local park but there's about 50 people there setting flares off. 

[nadera78]

IIRC there was a bit of a situation with the Catalan RL where the RLEF, as was, decided not to recognise them as an international federation because it put at risk some funding they had received from the EU. When they made that decision, the clubs in Catalonia packed up rather than become part of a Spanish RL.

[Madrileño]

16 hours ago, pahars said:

 

Roller hockey is pretty big in Catalonia and pockets of Italy and Portugal but pretty much unheard of in the rest of Spain and Europe. 
 

 

We have it here in Madrid. My municipality backs its local team financially very well. 

[gingerjon]

7 hours ago, nadera78 said:

IIRC there was a bit of a situation with the Catalan RL where the RLEF, as was, decided not to recognise them as an international federation because it put at risk some funding they had received from the EU. When they made that decision, the clubs in Catalonia packed up rather than become part of a Spanish RL.

Now that rings a bell. In true RL style, didn't we have a Catalonia RL and a Spain RL in direct conflict with each other?

[Sports Prophet]

9 hours ago, nadera78 said:

IIRC there was a bit of a situation with the Catalan RL where the RLEF, as was, decided not to recognise them as an international federation because it put at risk some funding they had received from the EU. When they made that decision, the clubs in Catalonia packed up rather than become part of a Spanish RL.

Correct, RL was being used as a political pawn to legitimise calls for Catalan recognition. Richard Lewis was supportive of giving them their own NGB status, but it all fell down soon after.

[pahars]

6 hours ago, Madrileño said:

We have it here in Madrid. My municipality backs its local team financially very well. 

Fair enough. In the professional men’s  league 15 out of 16 teams are in Catalonia and the other is in Galicia with Catalan players. 

[nadera78]

4 hours ago, gingerjon said:

Now that rings a bell. In true RL style, didn't we have a Catalonia RL and a Spain RL in direct conflict with each other?

I think so, yeah. Although I also think that at the time the majority of Spanish clubs were based in Catalonia which muddied the waters even further. 

It would be easier to list the countries where there hasn't been a split at some point.

[nadera78]

2 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

Correct, RL was being used as a political pawn to legitimise calls for Catalan recognition. Richard Lewis was supportive of giving them their own NGB status, but it all fell down soon after.

There was a lot of sympathy towards it for a while, and I think the Catalan football team had re-started around the same time as well. Once the financial support was put at risk there was no way the RLEF could afford to let it continue.