Barcelona refuse to give Real Madrid a guard of honour ahead of el clasico this weekend

Guillermo Amor, institutional director of Barcelona, confirmed that his team will not be forming a 'pasillo' as is customary after Real won the Fifa Club World Cup

Gonzalo Caada
Monday 18 December 2017 13:19 GMT
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There will be no guard of honour for Real Madrid this weekend
There will be no guard of honour for Real Madrid this weekend (Getty)

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Barcelona have confirmed that they will not give a guard of honour to Real Madrid ahead of El Clasico despite the side from the Spanish capital winning the Club World Cup on Saturday.

Guillermo Amor, institutional director of Barcelona, confirmed that his team will not be forming a 'pasillo' for the Madrid club, as is customary, because they weren't part of the tournament in question.

“In this club we use to give a guard of honour when we participate in the competition of the winning team… and now it is not the case”, explained Amor when asked about the issue that arose after Real Madrid’s victory in Abu Dhabi against Brazilian Gremio.

Barcelona’s defender Jordi Alba shared Amor’s opinion: “We will see what happens but I think that we carry out the guard of honour in competitions where we play and we haven’t played the Club World Cup”

Usually in Spain, when one team wins a title, they receive a guard of honour at the beginning of the following match. Nevertheless, this tradition has recently been broken on occasion.

Last summer Barcelona refused to honour Real Madrid after them winning the European Supercup, when both met shortly afterwards in the Spanish Supercup - a situation that will be repeated on Saturday.

Although Guillermo Amor justifies Barcelona’s decision on them not playing the Club World Cup, the Catalan team have previously received guards of honour by teams that have not participated in the same competition.

In 2010 and 2015, Betis and Villarreal, respectively, gave a guard of honour to Barcelona after them winning the Club World Cup. Nevertheless, in 2011 Catalan team Hospitalet didn’t honour Barcelona because Guardiola didn’t want it to be carried out.

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