Simon Hunter
SPAIN’S Culture Ministry has decided to cancel a national bullfighting prize and is to start the process of eliminating the award for good.
That’s according to ministry sources, who were speaking to online daily El Diario.
The National Bullfighting Prize was created back in 2011, and awards a prize of €30,000 to the winning matador.
This is considerably more than the amount won by winners of national literature prizes in Spain, who generally receive some €10,000 less.
As well as scrapping the prize this year, the Socialist-led government will also conduct a public survey on the issue, which is the first step to permanently eliminating the award.
Sources from the Culture Ministry – which is run by the Socialists’ coalition partner, leftist alliance Sumar – told El Diario that the decision to get rid of the award was a ‘faithful reflection of the values and feelings of society’, with a ‘rising’ concern for animal wellbeing.
“Attendance at bullfighting events is, according to data from the 2021-22 period, at just 1.9% of the population,” the same sources said.
While events involving bulls remain popular at local fiestas in Spain, enthusiasm for bullfights themselves has been steadily waning.
According to Culture Ministry figures cited by El Diario, there were 3,651 bullfighting events held in Spain in 2007, while that number had fallen to 1,546 in 2022. Of these just 412 were actual bullfights, while the rest were variations such as rejoneos, which are performed on horseback.
The last winner of the National Bullfighting Award was Julian Lopez, known as El Juli, who retired from the ring after a 25-year career.
