Madrid: Spanish soccer came within hours of pulling off the perfect comeback during the coronavirus pandemic.
The first division finished its delayed schedule with Real Madrid winning the title and the second tier reached the final round of matches without glitches. Only the promotion playoffs would be left in a season that lingered after a three-month break because of the pandemic.
But chaos struck just before the regular season could be completed. It was about 5 p.m. local time (1500 GMT) on Monday, four hours before the final-round kickoff, when Spanish league president Javier Tebas was told of an outbreak of coronavirus cases at Madrid-based club Fuenlabrada. Six players and two members of the club’s technical staff had tested positive for COVID-19. “It’s when the situation got complicated,” Tebas told Spanish TV.
“According to the protocols, the game couldn’t be played.” Fuenlabrada, fighting for a berth in the playoffs, had a decisive match against Deportivo La Coruña, the former first-division champion that was facing relegation.
Deportivo players had already arrived for the game at the Riazor Stadium when they heard the news about the positive cases at Fuenlabrada.
The league, the Spanish soccer federation and local government officials had little time to make a tough decision: suspend only the Deportivo-Fuenlabrada match or the entire final round. All matches were scheduled to be played at the same time so no one would get an unfair advantage. But postponing all games beyond the expected end of the season would add the risk of some players relaxing their fitness, and would increase the possibility of more outbreaks among teams.
“If these matches were played in 10 days, what would be the players’ conditions? They were supposed to go on vacation,” Tebas said. “We would also have the sanitary risk. Maybe these matches wouldn’t even be played.”
So the decision to suspend only the match affected by the outbreak drew a wave of criticism — and threats of lawsuits — from clubs saying that the integrity of the competition was damaged. (AP)
