Spanish paper publishes article comparing Pep Guardiola to Nazi

Spanish newspaper El Pais published an opinion article on Tuesday that compared Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola to Nazi Germany's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

The opinion piece entitled 'The lies of Guardiola and other lies' calls the City manager one of the 'principle international propagandists' of the movement for Catalan independence, known as the 'process'.

Written by journalist Teodoro León Gross, the article includes the phrase: 'But Pep Guardiola gladly assumes the role of Pep Goebbelsdiola the propagandist of the 'process', falsifying reality with aplomb.'

Guardiola has previously explained his decision to wear the ribbon was a mark of solidarity with two people imprisoned over the Catalan independence vote, and the article has been criticised publicly by others in football.

It goes on to accuse of Guardiola of confusing 'facts with opinions' and focuses on a recent statement by Guardiola ahead of Manchester City's game against Everton, quoted in Spanish newspaper El Mundo as: 'Everything we have done these years: six million people going on to the street, we have done in a pacific way.'

The columnist questions both the figure six million and the pacific nature of the movement for independence.

The electoral register in Catalonia as of last December stood at 5.5m voters. León Gross wrote: 'Perhaps Guardiola includes 100 per cent of the electoral register plus another half a million future voters. It is strange because two million voters are not in favour of independence.'

On the pacific nature of protests he adds: 'The Mossos [Catalan police] have filed, before the Supreme Court, more than 250 violent acts in the process.'

Guardiola has been an outspoken advocate of Catalan Independence and been charged by the Football Association for displaying a yellow ribbon to protest the detention of the referendum organisers.

Football Association chief executive, Martin Glenn was heavily criticised for saying: 'We have rewritten Law 4 of the game so that things like a poppy are okay but things that are going to be highly divisive are not.

That could be strong religious symbols, it could be the Star of David, it could the hammer and sickle, it could be a swastika, anything like Robert Mugabe on your shirt - these are the things we don't want.'

The comparison of Guardiola with a Nazi was criticised in social media by former Barcelona and Celtic midfielder Marc Crosas who tweeted: 'RIP El Pais! It used to be the best Spanish speaking newspaper.

'Now it compares someone who argues for the right to decide with a Nazi!'

Goebells was Hitler's Propaganda Minister from 1933 to 1944. He was an advocate of the extermination of the Jews and 'total war' (the enlisting of those previous exempt from conscription and the closing down of businesses not related to the war effort.

He died in Hitler's bunker committing suicide with his wife after poisoning their six children.