The Spanish Football League has asked the local federation to transfer the expected match between the two rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid from the first stadium to the capital on the back of tension in Catalonia after the imprisonment of separatist leaders.
The association said today it had asked the "Competition Committee of the Spanish Football Federation to hold a meeting and relocate the place of residence of El Clasico to Madrid because of the extraordinary circumstances beyond our control."
The game between leaders Real Madrid, two points behind Barcelona, ​​will be held at the second Camp Nou on January 26 in the tenth stage of the league. Catalonia has been tense since the Spanish Supreme Court on Monday jailed nine separatist leaders between nine and 13 years for their role in the region's attempt to secede from Spain in 2017.
The tension was reflected by nightly unrest over the past two days, culminating on Wednesday night when dozens of protesters threw police with projectiles and lit garbage containers and cardboard cans. The clashes led to the injury of many people and the arrest of dozens in Barcelona and a number of cities of the separatist region.
In a statement Monday, FC Barcelona criticized the sentences, saying "political dialogue" was necessary rather than imprisonment. "In the same way that a preventive prison sentence did not help resolve the conflict, today's prison sentence will not help either, because prison is not the solution," he said.