The slowdown in football and the unanswered question from his doctors: "Would we return if there were not so many economic interests?

Football will have no choice but to continue hibernating for a few more weeks, after stopping the test round that LaLiga intended to carry out on all players and coaches starting next week. When the doctors of the clubs, not without enough doubts, tried to coordinate the massive testing of their staff , beginning on Tuesday 28, they received the counter-order yesterday. The plan is postponed, without a specific date, in the absence of the definitive OK of the Ministry of Health , which must thoroughly review the protocol that the Higher Sports Council(CSD) sent him on Thursday with his proposal to reactivate the training of the professionals of the ball and the other specialties. The document contains the demanding draft that LaLiga uses as a guideline to return to the competition. A gradual return - in three phases and based on thousands of tests - that will now have to be delayed. Until the second half of May it seems difficult for players to start exercising outside their homes, even if it is individually.

They must first submit to the canceled test round. Some clubs had already received yesterday the hundreds of PCR tests that the Synlab laboratory was going to perform on soccer players. The teams prepared the call, the material and the place chosen to quote the players. The parking lot of sports cities or stadiums was being the designated meeting point for professionals who would arrive in their cars to receive the obligatory puncture. Those drops of blood would draw the situation map, a previous step to start training. Now that process is without a date , generating more anxiety and confusion in the sector. What happened? That Health has rectified .

The agreements made last weekend between the CSD, the Federation and LaLiga encouraged the latter to accelerate with their restart plans, based on the demanding protocol that they had developed for the new stage of soccer under the epidemic. Cleaning, constant tests, small groups , concentrated players ... The document is as implacable as it is difficult to fulfill for a good part of the First and Second teams, lacking resources and adequate facilities for as much preventive measure as claimed in this sheet. route. This is how they began to whisper in the clubs, with an ethical debate unleashed in parallel. While health personnel and other critical sectors in the fight against the coronavirus continue to denounce the lack of tests, the soccer players were going to have thousands of them. Even Racing Santander's staff protested in a statement about this privileged treatment. Paco Jémez , Rayo's coach, spoke yesterday on the same line in the pages of this newspaper. For LaLiga, the comparison is demagogic and unfair, with many private companies, as they recall, already testing their employees to be able to resume activity.

The employers suspect that stopping Health from the round of controls on players is an aesthetic decision, given the criticism that the Government could receive for the difference in treatment of football. At the same time, it should be emphasized that it was Moncloa who opened the traffic light to LaLiga , with President Pedro Sánchez personally involved - over the phone - in the complex negotiations between the CSD, the Federation and LaLiga that took shape in those baptized as Viana pacts. Behind the government intervention, there was a concern about the enormous economic impact of the ball business and his interest in the stream of optimism that the return of the parties would cause.

In fact, as EL MUNDO announced yesterday, the protocol that the CSD sent to Health on Thursday highlights the "political benefits" of the return of football . It would suppose, explains the text, a "normalization of daily life". "Playing games behind closed doors allows them to be broadcast on television", and this, he says, would contribute "to strengthening the collective spirit in the last phase of confinement", and then give concrete examples of places where watching football would be appreciated: in families, residences, penitentiaries ... For the CSD, in political terms, this return would improve the " reputation of Spain ". Why? "The two best-known Spanish brands internationally are Real Madrid and Barcelona [...]. The resumption of the League would have a positive impact on our reputation, "he predicts.

The braking was digested yesterday with difficulty in the employers of soccer. They look at her from the CSD, accusing her of precipitation. " Never put dates . And now everything is going to be delayed, ”lament sources from the body that acts as a transmission belt between LaLiga and the Ministry of Health, owner of the final decision on the awakening of the sport. Club doctors, at least, will have extra time to get used to a protocol that does not convince them too much. This week, at a meeting of the guild, someone asked: "Comrades, if we forget about economic interests, would you bet on returning to the current situation?" And the response was significant silence.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• soccer
• Coronavirus

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