Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Several prominent lawyers and public notaries have been arrested in Marbella, for laundering criminal money on an almost unimaginable scale. Given the saga of the infamous late mayor of the place, Jesus Gil, this development can hardly have come as much of a surprise to anyone. Nonetheless, one Spanish newspaper managed to make it all sound like the fault of Gibraltar for being a fiscal paradise which entices Spaniards into dishonesty.

On a smaller scale, the EU has said that it will do its own investigation into allegations of widespread corruption on the part of the previous Catalunian government. This has led some prominent politicians to label their whistle-blowing colleague irresponsible for bringing this out into the open just when Spain is negotiating retention of its munificent EU subsidies. What a thoughtless, unprincipled cad.

Spaniards take their football very seriously and the national newspapers run commentaries of a quality which puts their British counterparts to shame. Right now, they are laying into Real Madrid and showing no mercy whatsoever. The consensus is that last week’s defeat to Turin in the Champions’ League, followed by the weekend’s loss to a journeyman team in the Spanish League, mark the end of an era. One rather gets the impression that few of the writers would think it inappropriate for most of the Galacticos to be hung, drawn and quartered. If so, I guess we would then see their pictures on the front page, rather than in the Sports pages at the back.

No comments: