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The firing of the chupinazo in this year's San Fermin, Source: Ayuntamiento de Pamplona

Pamplona’s San Fermin kicks off today

Pamplona’s San Fermin kicks off today

The city’s streets will be full of red and white colours for the following nine days

Pamplona’s emblematic city festival, San Fermin, started today and it will last until 15 July. The festival is popularly famous around the world for its Running of the Bulls segment, even if that is only one part of the festivities, which also include parades, traditional Basque sports, fireworks and a whole lot of merriment.

The start of the festival, like every year, was given at the central square, where from the balcony of the town hall the so-called ‘chupinazo’ was shot to mark the start of the party. The chupinazo is a rocket that is launched at noon by a special guest of the town, who is invited for the honour.

Controversy and celebration mixed

This year, the honour fell to representatives from the local Osasuna football club, including its president, coach and captains. The reason why the reps from the football club were invited to give the start of the festivities was that their club has been embroiled in some controversy with UEFA recently.

The club was excluded from competing in this season’s Conference League European tournament by UEFA. The regulative body cited a past match-fixing scandal from a decade ago as the reason.

Nevertheless, the locals united in support and solidarity of their favourite home club and showed their displeasure at UEFA’s decision.

Historically, the San Fermin has also been a regular target of controversy and moral attacks by animal-rights organizations due to the Running of the Bulls and the traditional bullfights held in the arena afterwards.

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