Post date: Jun 10, 2012 9:27:2 PM
Hopes were high for the Spanish team and attention was diverted from Spain's bailout request, which was made after European finance ministers decided on Saturday (June 9) to lend Spain up to 100 billion euros (125 billion dollars) to shore up its teetering banks.
Spain supporter Martin Sagreras dressed in the Spanish colours and carried a banner reading: "Spain 0, Banks 100 billion euro".
The opening match for Spain in the Euro 2012 competition offers football fans some temporary respite from the financial problems dogging the nation.
MADRID, SPAIN (JUNE 10, 2012) (REUTERS) - Spanish football fans gathered on Sunday (June 10) next to the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid to cheer the national team in their first Euro 2012 match against Italy.
He said he believed the request had been made on the same weekend as the opening match of the Euros as a distraction strategy.
"I think Mariano Rajoy's government has chosen this weekend to request a bailout on purpose because the Spanish national team is playing. I think they are manipulating sports politically in a way they shouldn't. It is a dirty way of playing," he told Reuters.
"This might help a little but it won't solve anything. In a way a win it would be bad because it makes us forget our main problems," he added.
A bailout for Spain's banks, beset by towering debts since a property bubble burst, would make it the fourth country to seek assistance since Europe's financial crisis began.
But fans agreed football was a way of forgetting the country's economic problems.
"This has nothing to do with it (the country's financial situation). This is a moment of freedom for people, an excuse to feel happy, but it has nothing to do with it," said football fan Paco.
"When something good happens, you have got to take it and run, that is how the saying goes. There are many things to worry about and very few to feel happy about. But this can be one of them," said Julio Cesar as he watched the match.
With financial rescues for Greece, Ireland, Portugal and now Spain, the European Union and International Monetary Fund have now committed around 500 billion euros (625 billion dollars) to finance European bailouts.