by john@staustell » Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:09 am
Three more players and a Fuenlabrada employee, who have been confined since Monday in a hotel in A Coruña, tested positive for diagnostic tests carried out on Thursday and are infected with covid-19. There are already 10 footballers of the Madrid team affected by the outbreak that led to the postponement of their match against Deportivo on the last day of the Second leg, and nine of them are on Galician soil. The warnings on the rest of the team’s members (37 in total) are maximum, to the point that the plans that the health services of Galicia and Madrid devised so that those who had not been declared positive could return to their addresses.
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All will continue in A Coruña while the last day of the Second is still at stake between communiqués, reports, meetings, harangues and legal strategies. Competition is paralyzed. Girona and Almería had to play the first game of the promotion last night. “They have to tell us when we should play,” said Mario Silva, coach of the Andalusian team. In Zaragoza they have neither date nor rival, because they can cross Elche or Fuenlabrada. “We do not deserve this state of uncertainty,” lamented central Alberto Guitián.
But LaLiga is involved in other matters. For example, in the elaboration of a report that in 11 pages details his version of what happened with the Fuenlabrada between Saturday and Monday and in which he replicates the very harsh statement from the Higher Sports Council (CSD), which on Wednesday accused the Fuenlabrada of not complying with the protocols, blamed LaLiga for this and pointed out both for not reporting the situation to the health authorities and embarking on a trip to A Coruña.
The report sent to the CSD by the entity chaired by Javier Tebas delves into the deep rift that now separates them and reminds the highest sports body in the country that the protocol for returning to competition and acting in the event of a positive (allowed that in a group with a single case of covid-19 there would be no confinement) was approved last May with their consent and that, in addition, was sent to the health authorities of all the autonomous communities. LaLiga clarifies that all the clubs have followed their indications in situations of indications of possible contagions, so that Fuenlabrada is freed from blame.
The story that LaLiga draws confirms a positive first from a Fuenlabrada player on Saturday night. Then it became known, and this is clarified in the report, that he is a footballer who had not jumped in the match played the previous day against Elche. On Sunday morning, 63 PCR diagnostic tests were carried out on the Fuenlabrada staff and personnel, and at seven o’clock in the afternoon there is evidence of two more infections and one doubtful one that was confirmed that same night.
Why does Fuenlabrada leave with four infected the following day of travel and, in addition, nobody reports the situation to the health authorities? LaLiga’s response points to the fact that the approved protocol is not breached and that whoever had to communicate what was happening, as defined by a royal decree approved on June 9, was the laboratory in charge of the analyzes. “It was confirmed that he did so,” clarifies the report. What it does not say is that the laboratories send the tests daily, so it does not seem likely that some certified cases on Sunday afternoon and night were checked by the Madrid health service on Monday at 8.45 in the morning, when Fuenlabrada undertook move to Barajas.
In its wakefulness to attend to all the fronts it has open, LaLiga clarifies that on Monday afternoon, as soon as it was recorded that there was suspicion of positives in eight of the samples taken that morning, it contacted the CSD and the Federation to jointly decide if the day was suspended, that the first contact in this regard took place just under three hours before the scheduled start of the matches and that in less than an hour and a half, the final, consensual resolution was reached, that it only be postponed the match between Deportivo and Fuenlabrada.
LaLiga, supporter of the start of suspending the entire day, also stresses that it was on Monday from six in the afternoon that contacts with the health authorities of Madrid and Galicia began to inform them of the situation. It was then when a bomb that had been detonated for 48 hours exploded and whose expansion does not stop between reproaches and more reproaches between the different sports authorities, all back to the brawl.
Harsh penalties if negligence is proven
The FEF Competition Committee studies whether Fuenlabrada could have been negligent when moving to A Coruña to play its match against Deportivo in which the Madrid club was playing for a place in the playoff for promotion to the First Division and the Galician entity its permanence in the Second Division. EL PAÍS has had access to the resolution by which Competition, based on Deportivo’s complaint, has opened a file with Fuenlabrada. “The grounds for such a request [apertura del expediente] It is carried out with the understanding that the CF Fuenlabrada SAD would have breached essential obligations imposed by the health and sports authorities as a consequence of the health crisis caused by the covid-19, and by the federal regulations that must regulate the conduct of the clubs to guarantee the integrity and the normal operation of sports competition ”.
Deportivo appeals to articles 68 and 74 of the FEF disciplinary code, both penalized with loss of points and demotion. Article 68 refers to behaviors contrary to good sports order. The 74 says: “They are specifically considered as very serious infractions, the omission of the duty to ensure the correct development of sporting events that imply risks for the spectators or for the participants”.
Feijóo sees irresponsibility and does not rule out the Xunta denouncing
“It was a trip that should never have occurred,” explained Alberto Núñez Feijóo, president of the Xunta de Galicia, about the sad event of Fuenlabrada in A Coruña. The Galician executive has opened an information file in this regard and its leader does not rule out that the case ends in his legal advice: “We would do it if we understand that they are acts constituting a crime.” Feijóo also pointed out that the risks generated have to be assumed due to the impact produced on public health. The most important outbreak of covid-19 in the health area of A Coruña since the lack of confinement is the one that was imported on the occasion of a football match that did not take place.
“We want to know exactly what happened and the sports and health responsibilities. There has been enormous irresponsibility in the conduct of the club and LaLiga, “said the Galician president, who also warned about the economic impact on the highest-class hotel in the city. “They have suffered many cancellations. Let’s all be a little proportionate and see if we look for solutions so as not to impact as much ”. Feijóo opened the possibility that a bubble could form that could transport the expeditionaries from Fuenlabrada to a nearby location that does not cause as much economic impact in a sector that is already experiencing difficulties. After the last confirmed infections it does not seem an easy solution to settle.
The outrage also prevails in the City Council of A Coruña, which yesterday presented to the Prosecutor’s Office a document requesting that responsibilities that could be even criminal be cleared. “I do not seek prominence, but I defend my city, which is what I am here for,” says the mayor, Inés Rey.
“I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”
