They came back Mallorca is round After three years. 2019 was the last time islanders were able to travel to the Balearic Coliseum to watch a bullfight. And they came back despite the obstacles imposed by the Balearic government, led by the socialist party Francina Armengol, and their partners in Podemos and the nationalists of Mès. The city council of Palma also joins the obstacles to the programming of bullfights.
It is the only city where people under 18 are prohibited from entering, even if they are accompanied by an adult. A ban that only Catalonia shared but with those under 14, just before approving a law in the Catalan parliament to ban bullfighting in bullrings and which in 2016 brought down the constitutional Court to consider that the autonomies do not have these powers. The law was unconstitutional.
A strategy that they wanted to copy in the Balearic parliament by approving the Balearic Regulatory Law Bullfighting and animal protection in 2017, with the support of those who promoted it, PSOE, Podemos and Mès who regulated the celebrations.
Barely a year later, in 2018, the Constitutional Court, once again, and as in Catalonia, ruled against the law. It was also unconstitutional.
To the company Balanawhich manages the Coliseum of the Balearic Islands, headed by the bullfighting businessman Antonio Matilla, obliges them to indicate in the bullfighting wall art that the show “may hurt the sensibilities of those present”, and the sale of alcoholic beverages inside the square is also prohibited. According to the businessman himself, they are not allowed to sell the seats in the upper part, those along the row of arches, which are the cheapest in the square and the easiest to sell. .
Juli triumphs in the ring
Thirty people gathered yesterday evening at the gates of the enclosure, summoned by Anima Naturalis, to protest against bullfighting. Inside, some 4,000 people attended the first post-pandemic celebration in which Zalzuendo bulls were announced for El Juli, Cayetano and Tomas Rufo, who replaced Morante de la Puebla. The artistic cast was joined by internationally renowned painter Domingo Zapata, who decorated the burladeros with his personal paintings.
The winner of the celebration was bullfighter Julián López, El Juli, when he cut off two ears and walked out on his shoulders through the front door, the door to victory opened again. The young Tomás Rufo, bullfighter revelation of the season, failed with his sword and lost an important victory in his first bull, and cut off his ear at the request of the second in the sixth of the night. Cayetano drew the worst fate.
On Friday August 5, the second consecutive celebration of the bullfighting fair in Palma will take place. Luis Algarra’s bulls are announced for El Fandi, Manzanares and Roca Rey, the most profitable bullfighter of the moment. And the entry of some 5,000 people to the Balearic Coliseum is planned, where the vast majority of participants are foreigners who spend their holidays on the islands.