José María García (Madrid, 79 years old), “I was born here by accident: I deserve to be Asturian”, arrives at the Hotel Villamagna in Madrid at the agreed time, 10:30 in the morning. It’s Monday May 22nd. Garcia’s on a promotion. On May 29th, Movistar Plus+ presents the documentary Supergarcía directed by Charlie Arnaiz and Alberto Ortega. An unusual and wild take on a sports radio character that paralyzed Spain night after night.
Questions. When did EL PAÍS conduct the last interview with you?
Answer. Never. This is the first time.
Q He baptized PRISA [empresa editora de EL PAÍS] as a monopoly empire.
R If I’ve been calling the “monopoly empire” for 50 years, I’m not going to stop now. But I’m also a teammate and I will never put another teammate like you in a difficult situation. My house was no longer free and clean. bought a station [se refiere a Antena 3 Radio] complete it with one basic goal: finish off García. And he kept half of my team. I let my employees listen. Some stayed, others went. I told them they would be fooled because they would buy it to close. Some stayed, and a short time later they closed it.
Q Who baptizes you Supergarcía?
R Manuel Martin Ferrand. The one that spawned Antena 3. I left TVE because I didn’t agree with the way it was done and they punished me too.
Q WHO?
R Adolfo Suárez, then Director General of TVE, later President of the Government. I found out that the President of Oviedo had the idea of signing the President of Langreo as Oviedo’s manager. How is Oviedo supposed to sign Langreo’s president when both play in the same category and have to play against each other? Which president decides who wins? I brought the two together to create a report. The Oviedo president didn’t attach much importance to having signed the Langreo president. I ask them the questions. The two are unhappy, all happy because they appear on TV. To end the report, I put them both on their backs to pick them up like this, two fat guys, presidents of the old ones, and I say, “There they are. Well fattened, better drunk and your back to reality.”
Q …
R When it airs, he calls me Adolfo Suárez. ‘Do you know what you did?’ ‘Well, Adolf. I think, and you will think so too, that it was a great report.’ ‘But do you know who the President of Oviedo is?’ ‘I know it doesn’t and I don’t care either. A kind uncle who did something rude. “He’s Mrs. Carmen Polo’s cousin.” “And what’s my business? We didn’t rape him and I didn’t have a gun directed him to prepare the report.
Q In the documentary, some speak highly of you and others give birth to you as usual.
R If only those who speak well of you would talk, that would be a fool. I didn’t forbid anyone to speak, nor did I force anyone who didn’t want to. And there were people who didn’t want to speak, especially those associated with Florentino Pérez.
Q Are you still not related to him?
R None, fortunately. Not with Aznar. Aznar was the one who did everything possible and even the impossible to sell Real Madrid’s Ciudad Deportiva. What no president had achieved, Florentino achieved. One fine day I call the mayor of Madrid, José María Álvarez del Manzano, and he tells me: “You will hand over my body before I sign the sale.” And Álvarez del Manzano sells. I call him and I say, “What do I do with your body now?” He tells me that Aznar called him and that he had to sign the sale.
I didn’t forbid anyone to speak, nor did I force anyone who didn’t want to. And there were people who didn’t want to speak, especially those associated with Florentino Pérez
Q Did any of the documentation touch you?
R No, I was saddened by what the son of a friend who I had helped a lot and who respected me utterly, Antonio, had done before [se refiere a la serie Reyes de la noche, cancelada en la segunda temporada y producida por Antonio Asensio]. She spawned a mess of lies and atrocities.
Q you took it
R No, I didn’t load it. I haven’t done anything.
Q Let’s assume he has communicated his uneasiness to the highest levels of the company.
R No. I made my discomfort public, especially for him. I say this and I don’t do it right, because if you do something, you shouldn’t announce it. But when my friend got sick, I felt that he needed me and I helped him in many ways. There’s an anecdote I’m going to tell you now, after a long time.
Q to count.
R I wanted to visit him at the Ruber Clinic. He was already unconscious, but his wife believed he was conscious and could figure out what we were saying. And when I arrived, his wife said: “Look, Toni, how lucky: García will broadcast the game for you.” And I radioed the game in progress. I felt cheated by his son for a handful of euros. Because this series was nonsense of serious lies that deserved a trial. But that’s it, it’s over.
Q Is there a Garcia person and a Garcia character?
R I don’t consider myself a character and I don’t like being one, I like being a person. And if he can be a good person, all the better.
Q Over time, he has reconciled with many people. For example, José Ramón de la Morena.
R In our confrontation, we were both dead wrong. And I recognize it.
Q Did you also make up with athletes with whom you fought fierce wars?
R I have no problem with anyone. But there is one very, very lying athlete and that is Perico Delgado. The other day he even went so far as to say that they called him Perico because I called him Perico, which is a lie. He was a good athlete. He fought, he was an outstanding man, he was infinitely clumsy at everything. He was late to a stage and presented a reward to a foreign rider who had helped him win the Vuelta rather than give it to someone else (but being suspicious, he did it in person). keep messing with me I’m not worried. He seems like a clumsy fellow to me, and he’s also a big believer in the few we have.
Q Sorry but I’m still thinking about it. If Asensio died in 2001 and you retired in 2002, that match with your unconscious friend without an audience was one of the last you broadcast. when did it start
José María García, in the first episode of “Supergarcía”.
R Always. I studied at the Maravillas school in Madrid. After Sacred Hearts and by the age of 10, he was already contributing to the school magazine.
Q And on the radio?
R On Radio Spain with Bobby Deglané. There was a show called Who sang the 40 and we were a team looking for people to take to an interview. Deglané had a friend who would drop by from time to time to watch the show: old Lara the Andalusian [José Manuel Lara Hernández, fundador de Planeta]. He would spend many days there because he is close to Bobby and would watch us work. One day he calls me: “Boy, you’re the fastest of them all and the smartest, and you’re going to make a very good living from that.” But listen to me, I’m an old dog: Take off the García because in Spain there are more than a million Garcías and it is very difficult to be that successful.”
Q He ignored her.
R Happens time and one day he calls me to let me know that he would like me to present this year’s planet. I arrive in Barcelona and he tells me: “I bragged about you, there are a million Garcías and only you are known.”
Q You had success very early on.
R I think I’m the journalist in Spain who has struggled the most to be successful. They refused me bread and salt. First of all, my voice wasn’t for the radio, because then you had to have a big, deep voice. And according to the Santiago Bernabéu, I had a female voice.
Q But did you have problems?
R Much. In the city for example. I went through real hell with the sports section there: it was a bit like free journalism, brave journalism. Only the managers were right, it turns out the athletes were wrong; I was often grounded, like at school: a week at home. Early one morning, at six in the morning, the director Emilio Romero called me and told me to go to San Sebastián because the stone-lifting champion there had become a boxer. It was Urtain. I invented the character of Urtain. I took him to Paris with all his equipment. We put some important txapelas on it, creating the myth of defeat. And then I had to kill the myth myself when I discovered it was all silly.
Q tongo
R They paid him the same to jump into the first round as they did to jump into the second. And I found out. I even made a book.
Q He wasn’t the only Tongo who knew, but not all published it.
R If the communicator has a large audience, they must be faithful and careful not to hurt the listeners with this message, even if one misses the opportunity to brag with an exclusive message.
Q But he hides the truth.
R These are exclusive titles that cause great damage to the listeners. And I retired with two pieces of news that I have never told and never will tell. First, they are very serious, and second, they hurt the listener.
Q We can say that they concern two great Spanish sports achievements, two great Spanish sports achievements.
R [Asiente]
Q The documentary begins with a sentence: “Since the day he left, he has never stopped dreaming of returning to radio.”
R The conditions were not met. First because I had serious problems. Shortly after the first rehab, I got cancer, a cancer that friends of mine before me had gotten and died from, like Paquito Fernández Ochoa. God, my family and most importantly an amazing team of doctors have helped me a lot.
Q And the conditions in journalism?
R You need a strong, bold company to support you. And that is not the case. Before, you had one influence, which was advertising. For example, they took care of me because I made companies rich with the advertising I managed. At 12 o’clock at night there were no advertisements on other sites. But here lies a problem. In the United States, the businessman understands that advertising is an investment, and when bad times come, he redoubles his efforts. The Spanish businessman understands that advertising is an expense, and when the bad times come, he turns off the tap.
Q And journalism itself?
R They always say there is no journalism. Of course, there is no such thing as information journalism. There is no reporting journalism. Today, the complaint is made by some parties to screw up the others, but not by a journalist who did the research. I had a close friend who was a brilliant professional who denounced and worked very seriously. One fine day I met him and I said, ‘Hey, it’s been a long time since I read your report, what happened?’ And he tells me, ‘Well, with the last one I did, I did I spent a month and a half. It was a drug problem. They paid me 150 euros and the manager refused me part of the expenses like taxis and others. He says: “I have children and I have to live with something else, so I ended up in Sálvame.”
Q Do you have a deal with Feijóo?
R Bit. We had more business before than now. You have to mark your territory because they will touch their territory. It may be valid, but one must be aware that Madrid is not Galicia.
Q Yolanda Diaz?
R I like this.
Q Pedro Sanchez.
R I disagree with many of the things he did, but I also disagree with the heinous and horrible treatment journalists gave him. He’s not an asshole. And he’s a guy left on the damn street and had the most famous barons eat out of his hand in less time. He’s no fool. But he lacks a lot of empathy.
Q Santiago Abascal and Vox.
R I don’t feel like talking about Santiago Abascal. I think it’s a shame for this country that this character exists.
Q And your political party?
R No no. See, I was fed up with the duopoly. Now PSOE, now PP. And when Paul arrives [Iglesias] I am happy about the news. But it took me 15 days to figure out that it was all theory, that nothing was real. And I think Pablo Iglesias the most prepared politician or ex-politician (because now I don’t know if he’s a politician, but if he’s a TV entrepreneur). He tried and he succeeded. But of course he sold stories that didn’t correspond to reality.
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