Royal Spanish Football Federation Issues Circular On Covid-19 Crisis

On Tuesday, due to the current COVID-19 crisis, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (“RSFS”) published a circular establishing a series of measures relating to health and economic concerns and to football classifications and results.

The RSFS announced that it would only allow official sporting events to be resumed when Spain’s health and sports authorities have determined that there is no longer any risk to athletes’ health.

The RSFS also stated that immediate action must be taken to remove all uncertainty regarding games and their results. The RSFS’  plan is as follows: a) this season’s pending games will be played, even if it is necessary to use part of the 2020-2021 season, since, in keeping with the essential values of the sport, not playing all the games would be “unfair”; or b) if this is not feasible, the entire season will be considered not to have been played. In any case, the intent is not to award any championship titles unless all games for the entire season have been played.

The RSFS also announced that resuming games behind closed doors will be the last option as long as there are other ways enabling games to be played on the playing fields with fans attending.

Lastly, the RSFS clarified that it will not allow economic losses sustained by football clubs to hurt national amateur teams, i.e., the subsidies the RSFS provides them. Therefore, it commits to not cutting back on the funds it provides directly and that have already been announced and committed to the regional sport federations and to Spanish football clubs.