Spanish Newspaper Compares Pep Guardiola with Nazi Leader

El País opinion piece attacks the coach for his involvement in Catalan independence

Former FC Barcelona and current Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has been dubbed “Pep Goebbelsdiola” by Teodoro León Gross, writing in El País. Joseph Goebbels was the Nazi government’s minister of propaganda until his suicide when the Axis powers lost the war.

“Pep Guardiola gladly assumes the role of Pep Goebbelsdiola as a propagandist of the Catalan process mantras, faking reality with aplomb,” writes León Gross. In his opinion piece, “Guardiola’s Lies,” the writer attacks the coach for his role in the Catalan independence movement.

The opinion piece has caused outrage in Catalonia and beyond. Another journalist, Pilar Rahola, wrote that the article was “a dark moment for journalism.” Meanwhile, former FC Barcelona youth player Marc Crosas took to Twitter to write “RIP El País,” charging that the paper has dropped massively in quality and calling it “shameful.”

Ariel Kanievsky, a Jewish history professor, also commented via Twitter, calling it “a quite disgusting banalization of the holocaust” to make the comparison.