The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Movistar is broadcasting a five-episode serial entitled

that is having an impact.

It portrays an era of our football, and tangentially of our society, not so distant in time (or at least not for those of us who are already celebrating their birthday), as in uses and customs.

A time that is evoked with indulgent tenderness from the nostalgia of those of us who lived through that, but which has to shock and even frighten younger eyes and ears.

Football was like that, its presidents were like that, society was that permissive.

We laughed at them.

There are comments that are unpresentable today and more than one scene was already so then: Jesús Gil's punch to Fidalgo before the cloud of journalists at the gates of the League;

or the quarrel between Cuervas and Lopera in a radio meeting that was intended to be cordial while the Government delegate appears between the two, frightened between the exchange of invectives (“Maricón!” “Drunk!”).

A turbulent time in which the clubs were directed by very footballing personalities with success in some business and a desire for social promotion, in some cases for political gain.

Smart guys, capable of cutting a noodle in the air, but they hadn't let their hair down from the stands.

Let's review: Gil, Caneda, Paco Roig, Irigoyen, Lendoiro, Núñez-Gaspart, Mendoza-Lorenzo Sanz, Cuervas-Del Nido, Lopera, Fouto, Solans Sr., Marcos Eguizábal, Ruiz Mateos and Mrs.... The limit of containment was variable, from the nullity of Jesús Gil or Joan Gaspart to the courtly manners of Ramón Mendoza, passing through the foxy and Galician caution of César Augusto Lendoiro, but they all jumped the dock sooner or later.

They lived that with risk and passion,

They owed the Treasury, they owed the banks, they owed the suppliers, they owed their players, they owed each other unpaid transfers.

No one dared put a stop to that because how to seize the trophy room from a club?

Who would dare that?

But it was also an effervescent time in which their exaggerated personalities pushed football upwards in a kind of atrabiliary marketing that I don't know if it has been studied enough.

It was also the time of Canal + with

, of the birth of the regional ones and their partisan locutions in the vernacular, of the García-De la Morena quarrel, of the outbreak of the sports press, of the appearance of a generous sports space in every newscast, of the matches on Mondays, of the

between Polanco and Asensio, resolved in a Christmas peace that antagonized Aznar.

The State tried to put a stop to the waste with the transformation into Sports Limited Companies, obligatory for all except Madrid, Barça and Athletic, for which a subterfuge was devised due to its semi-sacred character, and Osasuna, which turned out that he did meet the requirements raised, a blessed coincidence that served to clean up the alibi.

But our characters passed that faithfulness without problems.

Gil, showing money at night that he withdrew in the morning, Ruiz Mateos coming at the last minute, in pajamas and dressing gown... That plan included an alleged economic control, but football had highly developed antibodies and the first assault came out the winner.

The intention of relegating Sevilla and Celta for breaking the rule caused demonstrations greater than those of emblematic company closures.

Only time took them.

The next generation, already raised in a more civilized Spain, came in a different way.

The price of the hangover was a debt with the Treasury of 750 million euros, 1,000 with the bank, 500 from the clubs among themselves, 79 with players.

Of 42 clubs, 32 were in bankruptcy.

Today all that debt is drained because the new ones accepted common rules of financial discipline.

And their disagreements are resolved civilly.

You cannot ignore the boost that the recklessness and brown grammar of those men gave our football, but there is nothing to miss.

Yes it is good to review it to know where we come from.

And the portrait could not be more faithful.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on

Subscribe to continue reading

read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber