FOOTBALL REFEREE AND ETB-2 (BASQUE TV CHANNEL IN SPANISH) IN THE SAME VEIN

Andoni Canales

22-02-2018, BERRIA.

Abstract:

The author criticizes a perverse attack against the Basque language which happened last week at the Idiazabal football stadium in the Basque country. The attack consisted in a Spanish football referee vehemently banning players from talking in Basque to each other (see section DISLIKES).

Likewise, he deplores the attitude of the public Basque TV (ETB-2, a channel broadcasting in Spanish), because they also made the representatives of the football teams speak Spanish, despite knowing them to be native Basque speakers. In some other cases ETB-2 does its interviews in Basque and then puts Spanish subtitles on them. In this painful case, however, it wasn’t only the referee making the football players taking part in the match speak Spanish, but ETB2 as well.