Very few clubs have a story as rich and abundant as Barça. The history of the Barça club has been told by many writers and journalists and is constantly updated based on a common background assumed more or less authentic since its foundation in 1899. Although the work is enormous, Roger Vinton—pseudonym of a financial analyst and football specialist specialized in Catalan society—has read the most important texts to rewrite the life of the entity in the book The Barça web: The history of power in FC Barcelona (Peninsula). A title that is added to the two already published about the Barça entity itself: Barça faces the crisis of the 21st century (Barça faces the crisis of the 21st century) and The Great Spider Web.
The result is a novel and rigorous publication, according to several scholars, because it investigates the sources – some until now ignored -, questions statements that were taken as true for centuries and centuries and builds a plot so interesting that it reads like a novel. Vinton blanks his mind when he leaves the library, makes a tabula rasa and dedicates himself to searching, ordering and associating papers to explain a story that escapes the clichés of Barça. The challenge of the text is to help distinguish between the lie – and therefore correct the errors -, the truth and also the doubtful about the keys of those who have sued to govern Barcelona. The Barça family tree is very well drawn by Vinton.
It is not about oversizing or embellishing the already known story, nor therefore about copying, but rather about contrasting from a titanic task and an unknown route that has consisted of consulting the minutes of the club’s board of directors from 1911 to 1936 and Check archives as curious as those of the Generalitat Railways or the Military of Segovia, as well as that of the University of Barcelona. The extensive documentation is presided over by a handwritten letter from Gamper. Vinton goes into great detail about the figure of the founder and the decisive characters in each of the most important stages of Barcelona – perhaps the most surprising is about the 1920s and Peris de Vargas.
About to celebrate its 125th anniversary, Barça has a new version of its history that is very worthwhile from the hand of Roger Vinton.
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