28 February, 2013

By VIVA Team

Does Spain need this man?

Leaders, huh – who’d have them? 2013 has been a particularly galling time for bosses, chiefs, gaffers and jefes. A few weeks back, the very head of the Catholic Church – the Pope himself – announced that he was to stand down from Papal duties as soon as possible.

This week, Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has resigned amid what the Guardian calls claims of ‘inappropriate acts’. And barely a week goes by without some beleaguered banking boss being hauled before the media to offer up a grovelling apology for some sort of misdemeanour on their watch.

But in Spain, the phenomenon appears to have reached another level entirely…

Firstly, there was the news that FC Barcelona’s manager, Tito Vilanova, would have to take a few months’ sabbatical to have an operation to remove a tumour from a saliva gland. At the same time, his counterpart and great rival at Real Madrid – the effervescent José Mourinho – has been coy, evasive and downright absurd about his own future and his team’s poor performances.

In politics, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has had to fight off accusations of economic corruption and scandal, and Spain’s Royal Family – never far from a negative headline these days it seems – have waded in with their own embezzlement embroilment.

These are strange times. Interesting, certainly, and great for headlines and hand-wringing. Spanish leaders seem to be having a collective identity crisis, which is at odds with the normally gruff, macho certainty of their convictions.

Perhaps what they need is a bit of true British grit? I’m not for one minute suggesting that Neanderthal British football managers should take over the reins at Barcelona or Real Madrid (even though that would be hilarious), but something a little more from the ground up.

British businesses in Spain have long been seen as successful outposts. The Costa del Sol, for a time, was an impressively robust and varied employer of British expats working for émigré UK companies. The economic crisis has hurt their number, but the good times were a symbol of what can be achieved with a bit of funding, forethought and good old British bloody-mindedness.

And while Britain’s political leaders and Royal representatives are hardly immune from controversy, there is – at least – a begrudgingly admirable way in which they bumble and fumble their way onwards.

It might not be pretty, but you never know – it might well be just what Spain needs… but where to start? Boris Johnson as head of tourism, perhaps?