Getafe President accused of lying after stoking anti-Catalan sentiment

Getafe President Angel Torres raised eyebrows this week, when he made comments about the treatment received in Girona, claiming he was insulted for being Spanish. Getafe came out victorious at Montilivi last Friday beating Girona 2-1.

The incidents were aggravated when the Press Officer at Getafe threw a water bottle at fans during the game, something that Torres expressed sympathy for.

“They spent the whole game insulting him. The boy, making a mistake, because it was a mistake and he is sorry, threw an empty water bottle and it didn’t hit them because he was thirty meters away. But they told the police and they fined him €3k. That’s unfair,” he explained to Relevo.

He continued on to claim that he was insulted due to anti-Spanish sentiment in the stands.

“Me, honestly I have a lot of patience. In the boxes I am an bar of ice, I don’t move, I don’t mess with anyone, but I can tell anecdotes, the one from the last game. In Girona we had all the problems with everyone. There was a person who I went to shake hands with to wish him luck and he told me that he didn’t greet Spaniards. Then other things happened, but what this guy did to me is more serious.”

According to the same outlet, this raised eyebrows across La Liga, with Girona have stood out for their warm treatment of other directors and presidents. Their sources in Girona say that this was not the case, and that while there was one person who did not shake hands with Torres, they were not part of the club, and at no point did any verbal exchange occur.

A story that is corroborated almost word for word by Catalunya Radio. They go on to add that the person in question had grown tired of the provocations from the Getafe players and staff, who on various occasions pointed to the Spanish flag. Their information is that while they did ignore a handshake from Torres, the conversation related by Torres is ‘an invention’.

Undoubtedly Girona is one of the places in Catalonia where pro-independence support has been strongest recent years. By the same token, elements of centralist media in Spain have gone out of their way to stoke anti-Catalan sentiment, painting a picture of the region that has little to do with reality.