Save Me…… from angry claims of non-existent French conspiracies

For the second time in a matter of months it seems my blogs have magical predictive powers. Last week I wrote about the pointlessness of local rivalry in sport, and in particular football. Then, this week, as if by magic, the papers and the TV news here have been filled with reports of what appears to be an increasingly bitter sporting rivalry between Spain and France.

From talking with local people here in Seville, apparently it’s the fault of France that Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador, three-time winner of the Tour de France, got a two year ban for doping offences this week.

And as if to make matters worse, the Spanish government yesterday threatened to sue French TV station Canal Plus over a satirical sketch show that suggested more Spanish athletes and sports stars had ties with doping.

Contador got banned for having a tiny amount of banned substance Clenbuterol in his wee. From the cursory research I’ve done into it, the ban was imposed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), based in Switzerland. The case was brought by the World Anti-Doping Agency, also based in Switzerland and the International Cycling Union, also based in Switzerland. The three-man panel at the CAS which ruled on it was made up of a German, an Israeli and someone from Switzerland.

Now, maybe I’m missing something here. But I didn’t see the word “French” or “France” anywhere in that last paragraph.

So having found this out yesterday – because I don’t have anything better to do with my miserable life – I decided the right thing to do would be to go and stand on top of Seville’s tallest building with a loud hailer and tell the locals that in fact they’d got it all wrong and the French were actually innocent in all of this and deserved an apology.

But then France’s Canal Plus satirical news show called Les Guignols (The Puppets) – sort of a French version of 1980s British satirical news show Spitting Image – then went and broadcast three sketches poking fun at the situation; the latest sketch featured Spanish athletes including Rafael Nadal and Spanish football captain Iker Casillas signing a petition in support of Contador. But using needles instead of pens.

Oh ha ha. Very funny. Cheers France. Just when I was about to back you up.

Now Spanish people are fuming, the government has blown a gasket, and it’s a dangerous place to be round here if you’ve got even a vaguely Gallic accent or admit to liking Camembert cheese.

I’ve spoken to a few people here to try and work out what’s got them all mad about the French, aside from the stupid TV sketch show. And the message I tend to get back is that apparently the French are jealous of Spain’s sporting achievements and that there’s some sort of conspiracy going on to discredit the Spanish so that France can once again regain international sporting glory.

Well, ok, Spain does have the best football team in the world at the moment, granted. And their basketball team isn’t bad. But they don’t have the best tennis player or Formula 1 driver or golfer or rugby team or swimmers or snooker players or gymnasts or boxers or skiers or cricketers or table tennis players or ice hockey players or darts stars. The list of what they’re rubbish at is frankly endless.

So that got me thinking. Is this sporting pride all a bit misplaced? Is the Spanish perception of a French conspiracy a little far-fetched?

“Rafael Nadal’s the best tennis player of all time,” said a Spanish friend to me this week. So I googled “Who’s the best tennis player of all time?” and I found a website that said it was, in fact, Jimmy Connors (who’s American by the way, but you probably knew that already). Nadal didn’t even make it into the top ten. He popped up at number 24!

Another said “It’s all political. We’re the best in the world when it comes to sport and the French hate us for it.” So then I typed “Who is the best country in the world at sport?” into Google. The answer I got was “Australia”. And by a long shot as well, apparently, especially when you take into account sporting prowess per head of population.

Another said to me: “Well, the French control everything when it comes to sport, especially cycling.” So I typed in “World sporting federations based in France.” And I got nothing. But what I did find out was that the International Olympic Committee and FIFA are both based in Switzerland.

Can you see a pattern emerging here?

Look, I’m the first to admit that my research isn’t exactly scientific. But, while I may be going out on a limb here, I’m willing to bet that the real conspiracy is being masterminded by the Swiss and is designed to make everyone blame France for everything.

A classic case in point is Toblerone, a chocolate bar that you can’t actually eat without making your mouth bleed. Many people believe that the triangular shape of the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps gave Swiss inventor Theodor Tobler the inspiration for the shape of his creation. But what few people know is that the shape actually originates from a pyramid the dancers at the Folie Bergeres in Paris created as the finale for a show that Theodor saw.

So you see, every time you get a sore mouth from eating a Toblerone, it’s the bloody French who get the blame again. If I was French I’d have written an angry letter to the Swiss by now, telling them to back off.

Anyway, after all this googling, I was getting quite carried away so I finally typed in “What is Spain good at?”

Organ transplants, olives and the Women’s Roller Hockey World Cup apparently. They’ve won four times since 1992, which is nice for them. France haven’t ever won it apparently.