Tucked away off the stony hiking trails of the Garraf National Park in Catalonia, a grand villa stands, shuttered against the intense Spanish heat.
Just 35 minutes from the centre of Barcelona, this opulent 17th-century building is marketed as the ‘ideal’ venue for rural weddings – with guests paying £5,600 a night to enjoy its 11 en suite bedrooms, two swimming pools and 40 hectares of private grounds.
Yet the serenity of the Alcazar del Garraf retreat has been somewhat shattered in recent days. For this 2,500sq m mansion is now at the unwelcome centre of the latest controversy to engulf Spanish football.
Last Saturday, Lamine Yamal – Barcelona’s superstar winger who has already been tipped as the heir to former world number one player Lionel Messi – hired the villa to celebrate his 18th birthday.
It was a suitably glitzy venue for the bleach-blonde teen with braces who helped Spain beat England in last year’s thrilling European Championship final – and was the youngest-ever nominee for the prestigious Ballon d’Or award for best footballer in the world.
Unsurprisingly, given his star power, the guest list read like a ‘who’s who’ of popular culture. Invitees included Formula One drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, Yamal’s Barcelona team-mate Pablo ‘Gavi’ Gavira and glamorous Spanish influencer Marta Diaz.
Yet it wasn’t the celebrities on the guest list that have sparked such a backlash in Spain. Also present at the gangster-themed bash – and paid to attend – were 12 blonde female models with ‘specific breast measurements’ and – even more notoriously – at least five performing dwarfs.
Footage of the dwarves – who did magic tricks, danced and served drinks at the event – has sparked allegations of ‘exploitation’, with disability activists threatening legal action against Yamal.
Given Yamal’s star power, the guest list read like a ‘who’s who’ of popular culture. Invitees included Formula One drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, Barcelona team-mate Pablo ‘Gavi’ Gavira and glamorous Spanish influencer Marta Diaz
The venue for the party was just 35 minutes from the centre of Barcelona. Guests must pay £5,600 a night to enjoy its 11 en suite bedrooms, two swimming pools and 40 hectares of private grounds
Even the Spanish government has waded into the row as the country’s disability minister called for an official investigation into the ‘harmful’ party this week.
It has raised troubling fears about the Barcelona wonder boy who made his debut as the club’s youngest-ever player in April 2023 and was crucial to his club winning the Spanish league last season.
So far, the club seems to be standing by its star player. Five days after the party, Barcelona unveiled Yamal as the holder of the famous ‘10’ shirt – previously worn by football greats Messi, Diego Maradona and Ronaldinho – as he signed a new £33million-a-year contract with the club until 2031.
But football insiders say Barcelona management are ‘very worried’ about Yamal’s hedonistic antics this summer, which have included high-profile jaunts to Sicily, Rio de Janeiro, Ibiza and Marbella – more of which later. All this has raised fears that he’s at risk of falling victim to the perils of the lavish lifestyle his prodigious talent has brought him.
And yet those close to him tell a different story. His devoted grandmother and family friends told the Mail this week of a ‘shy’ boy who’s been scapegoated for the party, which they claim he hadn’t even organised. Two of the dwarves present have also broken ranks – including a ‘dwarf influencer’ with more than 15,000 Instagram followers – claiming they’ve been victimised not by Yamal’s party but by disability campaigners.
So what really happened that fateful night? And what does it mean for Yamal’s future? To find out, the Mail travelled 50 miles east of the Alcazar del Garraf in the neighbourhood of Rocafonda in the Catalan city of Mataro.
It’s here where the young footballer was born to Equatorial Guinea-born waitress Sheila Ebana and Moroccan painter Mounir Nasraoui. His parents divorced when he was three, so Yamal divided his childhood between the neighbouring town of Granollers, where his mother lived, and Rocafonda, where his father was based.
While Yamal now lives alone in a luxury £700,000 flat near Barcelona’s training ground in the suburb of Sant Joan Despi, his pride in his birthplace remains strong. He celebrates his goals by making a ‘304’ gesture with his hands – representing the last three digits of the Rocafonda zip code, 08304.
Footage of the dwarves at the party has sparked allegations of exploitation, with disability activists threatening legal action against Yamal
The neighbourhood, created in the 1960s to house immigrants largely from Africa, has a gritty yet vibrant feel. Fruit stalls and ethnic food shops line the streets below crumbling buildings, which are draped with the flags of various African nations. On every corner, young boys kick footballs against the walls – hoping to realise their dreams as Yamal has. While his mother and father now live closer to Barcelona (in homes Yamal bought them by the age of 16), his grandmother Fatima – with whom he kicked off his birthday celebrations last Saturday – remains in Rocafonda.
Wearing a cream sombrero hat and a long blue abaya – a typical Middle Eastern dress which covers the body from ankle to neck – Fatima stopped to speak to the Mail as she left the local butcher.
Less than 24 hours had passed since she was seen walking hand in hand with her grandson in front of the Press – he insisted on her presence – as his new Barcelona shirt was unveiled.
But what does she think of the party controversy that has continued to overshadow it? ‘We had a lovely family meal [on Saturday] and then he went out for the night, but I don’t know anything about that,’ she said.
Asked about what happened at the Alcazar del Garraf, she said: ‘People are saying many things that aren’t right, but he is a good kid. I am very proud of him, he still visits me every week with lots of security and bodyguards. He is even coming today for lunch.’
Down the road from Fatima was Juan Carlos Serrano, the owner of El Cordobes bar. He has been close friends with Yamal’s father for the past ten years and even helped pay for their train fare before he was scouted by Barcelona at the age of six and sent to the club’s famed La Masia academy. He is firmly protective of a teenager he’s known for more than a decade and, when asked about the party, was dismissive.
‘It’s been blown totally out of proportion. Yamal hired an event organiser to throw the party and they hired the dwarves – not him. He didn’t specifically ask for them,’ Juan Carlos said.
‘Yamal is a nice, good kid. It might not seem it – but he’s actually quite shy.
‘If he did something bad, his mother and father would be the first people to criticise him and then [agent] Jorge Mendes. They are always telling him to be careful. They are the only ones to tell him how to behave.
‘The family don’t care about this. They know he’s a good kid.’
This all seems a world away from the Alcazar del Garraf where – hours after Yamal’s birthday meal with his grandma – he joined his 200 guests for the party.
Wearing a white suit with a red rose in the lapel, a £300,000 chain given to him by Dominican rapper El Alfa and clutching a cane, Yamal reportedly stuck to soft drinks while his guests sipped vintage Moet – served by the dwarves Commenting on the party, Spain’s national disability group the Association of People with Achondroplasia and other Skeletal Dysplasia (ADEE) said it ‘denounces the hiring of people with dwarfism as entertainment’.
‘We will take action through legal and social channels.’
Yet the dwarves involved said the ADEE does not represent them ‘or speak on our behalf’ and they were happy to have been hired for the party.
They said: ‘We are not part of this association, nor have we been consulted or asked for our opinion before making public accusations that directly affect us.
‘No one can automatically claim to represent an entire group without first listening to the people they claim to defend.’
Juan Alberto Duaso, the ‘dwarf influencer’ who went to the party, told the Mail that the days following the backlash had ‘not been easy’. He said he and the group who attended consider the matter ‘closed’ after releasing their statement but added: ‘The ADEE has violated our right to honour’. His fellow performer, who called himself only ‘Miguel’, said: ‘The statement is our response and there’s nothing else to add.’
Dwarves aside, the alleged hiring of the 12 blonde models has also caused a stir. One 36-year-old, who refused to give her name, told the Mail she was paid to attend purely to provide some ‘glamour’. Spanish model and former Miss Teenager Europe Claudia Calvo also claimed she was asked to appear at the event but declined.
She claimed organisers had offered to pay the girls up to 20,000 euros (£19,000) and even gave them a credit card to use during the celebrations. But she alleged they were told they had to be available for 24 hours and
were not allowed to use their phones or cameras.
The headlines about the party have certainly made their mark in Olivella, the closest village to the venue. ‘I’ve heard about it – but they will know more,’ said one local, pointing to the town hall.
Indeed, a worker at the village authority confirmed they had approved a request to host the bash subject to agreements on the capacity, curfew time and an ‘authorisation pass’ for cars taking the private road to the mansion.
Yesterday, the Alcazar del Garraf mansion tucked away in the 12,000-hectare national park, was quiet except for a portly middle-aged man, his skin burnt in the 32-degree heat, watering grass near the entrance of the villa.
He told the Mail: ‘I own all 2,500 square metres [of the mansion]. All this property is mine. We don’t want any publicity or attention to this place. We are not football fans or care about Lamine Yamal.’
Many of those close to the footballer and his controversial party seem confident, then, that the backlash will blow over. Yet football insiders have warned that won’t necessarily be the case for his managers at Barcelona.
Since the football season ended on May 25, they point out that Yamal has had an eventful summer – to put it mildly.
He made headlines in June after being pictured with OnlyFans model Fati Vazquez on a jet ski in Sicily, Italy. Days later, the player flew out to Rio de Janeiro to visit Brazilian footballer and notorious party animal Neymar, before he headed to Ibiza with his friends on a yacht.
Yamal then took a private jet to Marbella where he was filmed arriving at a beach club.
Little wonder that this has allegedly raised alarm bells at Barcelona, according to sports journalist Pipi Estrada. ‘Barcelona doesn’t like it. They’re very worried,’ he said.
The Mail approached Yamal’s team for comment but received no reply
With all this partying, then, what does the future hold for football’s king-in-waiting? While it seems Yamal’s grandma and the bigwigs at Barcelona are doing their best to keep his feet on the pitch, they can only pray the lure of the super-rich lifestyle – complete with squads of hired curvaceous blondes – won’t derail his career.
Additional reporting by Laurence Dollimore
