• Real Madrid.Zidane to Florentino: "'Presi', when do we start the League?

The ideas factory directed by Moncloa Iván Redondo, Pedro Sánchez's plenipotentiary guru, set out on football a long time ago as an important element in the plan of social de- escalation that Spain is facing in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. The economic importance of the balloon sector ( 1.4% of GDP ) and its ability to attract (and distract) the public decided the Government to bet heavily on the return of the League, despite the medical precautions that experts put in From the beginning.

The possibility of contagion in a contact sport would be high, but the risk, the Executive concluded, would be worth it. That is why he promoted the Viana Pacts between the Federation and LaLiga, so that the parties could return to the screen, even if it was without an audience in the stands. In that tough negotiation, Irene Lozano, the secretary of state for sports, managed to introduce a "social" clause , as government sources define, to bring open football to hospitals, nursing homes or day centers. In the midst of the shock caused by the coronavirus, the objective would be to ease the convalescence of the most sensitive population, especially affected by the impact of the disease in recent months.

From Moncloa, at the same time, it is recognized that the request is difficult to carry out. It is an aesthetic suggestion with a good background but little travel. In the steps of football de-escalation, the public image is being highly measured by the authorities, as has been shown with the management of the massive tests for the players, first suspended so as not to harm sensitivities before the sanitarians, later publicized as an example of firmness and health of the process and, now, carried out with extreme discretion to avoid reopening demagogic debates.

Purchase of rights

The proposal of free open matches for hospitals and nursing homes is difficult to carry out since television broadcasting rights have long been sold to different operators, who are responsible for offering and billing football through their platforms. The option of taking some express league matches that will start in June free of charge to certain geographical points is not contemplated either technically or contractually by LaLiga with its clients.

For now, the only open game of each day is broadcast by Gol, sports channel of the Mediapro company, one of the operators with rights to the championship. For about five million, he acquired this product, on the condition that the protagonists of it would never be teams classified for European competitions. That is, it is always about confrontations from the bottom of the table, with less interest for the audiences than the big clashes of the tournament.

Those greedy duels, those that would involve Real Madrid, Barcelona or Atlétic or, are the ones that Moncloa would like to give to hospitals or care centers for the elderly. For this, as suggested by the operators, there are only two solutions: that some generalist channel buy - just as Gol did - another open match or that the Administration is in charge of paying for this paid football in hospitals or residences. The most aggressive way would be the expropriation of rights, something that the Government is ruling out at the moment.

From LaLiga and television platforms this request of a social nature is viewed with skepticism. "Small print", they call it, within the Viana Pacts, a point of union between Javier Tebas, president of the club's employers' association, and Luis Rubiales, his counterpart in the Federation and famous arch-enemy. The volcanic couple that runs Spanish football will soon have to sit down to also negotiate the return of the game on Monday, one of the points of friction that they have maintained in recent years and that ended up being settled in court. Rubiales got away with it, contrary to this extension of the day due to the inconvenience caused to the fans having to go to the stadium during a working day.

Hours 'anticalor'

Now, due to the tightness of the calendar (11 days will have to be resolved in a month and a half), Tebas is confident of obtaining the federal OK to schedule football on Mondays. In this way, LaLiga could distribute the grid in four days, starting on Friday, and thus adjust to the time sections that flee from the summer heat. At this point, Rubiales and the Soccer Association have said that they will be inflexible. They do not want risks for players forced to play highly demanding matches every three days and with the handicap of summer temperatures.

The proposal that the Federation manages is to place matches in two daily strips. In the north of the country, at 1:30 and 9:30 p.m. , and in the south, at 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. , avoiding as much as possible the hardest moments of the heat. The clubs hope that by the end of next week LaLiga will make the calendar public, without ruling out that the schedules of the remaining 11 days will be announced suddenly. The start date is still in the air, but Thebes intends to start on June 12 and end on July 26. If necessary, they could even occupy the first weekend of August.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Real Madrid
  • Pedro Sánchez
  • GDP
  • Luis Rubiales
  • Javier Thebes
  • Ivan Redondo
  • Irene Lozano
  • sports
  • First division

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