Barcelona’s divided politics over America’s Cup hosting

Thursday, 10 October 2024

Stuff is the official broadcast partner of the America's Cup 2024. Watch all races live on stuff.co.nz/americascup, as well as on Three and ThreeNow.

It wouldn’t be the America’s Cup without off-water politics.

But in Barcelona, ahead of this weekend’s start of Team New Zealand’s latest defence of the Auld Mug, the politicking extends beyond the sailors.

A former Barcelona mayor and a community coalition claim the silver trophy has a dark cloud over it. But local proponents say the event is delivering.

The community activists are also building support among small, left-wing parties for an examination of the claimed benefits – and to prevent future hosting of the cup.

The man who was the catalyst for Barcelona’s hosting has called the opposition and accusations “completely unfair”.

Daniel Puig said there have been tangible and intangible benefits to a city that was demoralised five years ago.

“The intangibles? It's that the city is smiling,” he says.

Spanish media have reported that fee of 70 million Euro (NZ$126m) was paid to Team New Zealand for the right to host the 37th Cup, between the city, region and national governments.

The most visible opponent is the No Copa America (NCA) movement, whose spokesman Albert Valencia said it was a platform made up of 150 community groups.

Valencia said they were initially against the Cup’s contribution to mass tourism, but had now picked up arguments advanced by an anti-establishment newspaper, Directa.

Directa, in a 16-page feature, said television audiences for the Cup – and the number of visitors it would bring – had been exaggerated and was critical of the role of some public officials, and of financial incentives.

“Our position is that this America's Cup has been sold to the politicians here in Catalonia as something great and that the only thing that it's doing is extracting money from the (public) administrations and doesn't have an economic impact in the city,” Valencia told Stuff.

No Copa America held a media session in the Catalan Parliament to announce that with backing from the small far-left Candidatura d'Unitat Popular, (CUP) it had sought support for examination of the benefits forecast to come from the hosting.

The other critic is Ada Colau, a two-term mayor of Barcelona who was part of a broad political consensus to host the racing.

Colau quit politics in September after the 2023 elections saw her party lose seats, and an alliance of left-wing parties chose her former deputy Jaume Collboni for the top job.

“We believed that this could have a positive impact on the city, in this case time has shown that we were wrong – the positive impact is nowhere to be seen,” said Colau in a social media post.

“At this point I think it is better to admit the mistake.”

None of this impressed Daniel Puig, who in an interview with Stuff, was struggling to find an English word stronger than “frustration”, pointing to the 4,000 locals who work on the Cup as event volunteers.

The Puig name is well-known in Barcelona, the multi-billion dollar health and beauty firm was founded there 110 years ago.

Puig said Barcelona was in an economic slump when the opportunity to bid for the Cup arose.

“Barcelona, like any city in the world, has its ups and downs. We were in a down,” he said.

Puig got wind that Team New Zealand was seeking bids to host the 2024 Cup, and emulated what his father had done in helping secure the 1992 Olympic Games for the city.

In the mid-1980s, 10 wealthy individuals, chipped in nearly a million Euros (NZ$1.79m) apiece to fund the city’s successful hosting bid.

It was a Games which Puig said transformed Barcelona, opening it to the sea, creating waterfront amenities, a recreational boating marina and apartments along a waterfront that was previously industrial.

NCA’s Albert Valencia wasn’t born when the ‘92 Games were hosted, but acknowledged the regard with which it is held by locals.

“For many people, like my parents' generation, that is an untouchable moment in history that they are very proud of, and they do not accept any kind of discussion about it,” he said.

The Olympic legacy of opening the city to the shoreline worked, but 35 years later in what Puig described as the “down”, the shine had gone.

A waterfront promenade had become a place for trinket sellers where traders, he said, unofficially paid “rental” to private interests for a blanket space. The once giant Imax theatre was occupied by squatters and the marina had become a “dangerous” area.

Puig said something needed to be done.

In 2021, with the bid deadline looming and after doing the political rounds, Daniel Puig found in the space of 15 days, 17 wealthy backers to underwrite the $44.8m required to accompany the Cup bid.

“We're not going to change the world in two days, right? But, I think that the morale of the people has completely changed (due to the Cup),” Puig told Stuff.

For the list of “tangibles”, Puig scrolled through his phone, showing pictures of rundown historic marine sector buildings now restored.

He pointed to the main race village where the trinket sellers once were, and the revamped Port Olympic where space for marine-related start-up ventures replaced discos.

A key claim of Cup opponents is that the case for hosting was based on unrealistic data, such as the 2.5 million visitors it would bring, and that the nature of the global television audience was overstated.

Mass tourism is a political issue in a city with housing unaffordability and the council has stopped issuing new licences for tourism accommodation, such as Airbnb, while 10,000 existing licences will lapse by 2029 in a bid to return housing to locals.

Valencia said that in the Barceloneta neighbourhood, closest to the Cup port, 80% of apartment rentals are short-term and most refer to the America’s Cup.

Mateu Hernández, the CEO of Tourism of Barcelona, moved into that role after heading the private sector economic development organisation Barcelona Global, a player in the cup bid.

Hernandez said the figure of 2.5 million Cup visitors did not refer just to foreign tourists. He said a big part of that could be locals.

“You can go down to the Olympic Port and you will see the boats flying just in front of you, some metres from you, and that's quite unique – people coming even from different neighbourhoods in Barcelona or the province coming to stay the day,” he said.

“The America's Cup as an event of audiences, a way to promote Barcelona to a new audience, which is the audience of the blue tourism – people who love sailing, who love the sea.

“We fill hotels in a much better way through congresses, (like) the European Congress on Cancer, 37,000 medical doctors for cancer came to Barcelona two weeks ago.

“The America's Cup is not an event with a huge number of tourists coming to Barcelona, so if you are opposed to mass tourism, you should be pro the America's Cup.”

Hernandez, Puig and Valencia agree on one thing. A majority of locals are not against the Cup. A proportion are enthusiastic, most are indifferent or neutral, and a small proportion against.

However Valencia said: “For a long time, I've been in different movements around my neighbourhood and I haven't seen a movement as big in the city for many years now.”

Whether Barcelona hosts another America’s Cup will depend on two things. Team New Zealand must win it (INEOS Britannia would take the event “home” to Britain after 173 years) and a new deal would be needed between two willing partners.