Spain now accuses the player whose improper alignment left her out of the World Cup: "He knew everything"

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Key days for the Spanish rugby team.

A judicial committee appointed by the International Federation (World Rugby) is analyzing this week the appeal of the Spanish Federation (FER) against the sanction for improper alignment that, by deducting two victories, left the

without the place in the World Cup that he had earned in the field.

The Spanish appeal cites precedents in which top-level teams did not receive collective sports sanctions for similar infractions.

But, above all, it adds

.

He is the South African

who played the final minutes of two matches already resolved and whose documentation had previously been falsified by third parties to hide that in 2019 he had been out of Spain for more than two months.

If he had known, that detail would have prevented him from enrolling in the national team.

In its first sentence, World Rugby considered that both the Spanish Federation and the player had breached the regulations on players assimilable by residence.

The FER, heavily burdened by previous negligence, was disgraced for not having verified the documentation and that it had not even interviewed the first line.

He received a double punishment, sports and economic.

Van den Berg was criticized that he "should have known he was ineligible."

But he was not punished because his guilt was discharged in the "failure of the Federation for not informing him, educating him and questioning him."

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The appeal, in which the players of the national team have been involved, denies Gavin van den Berg and indirectly questions basic points of the sentence.

One of the team's managers, José Manuel Corchado, S

, affirms (and provides screenshots) that on September 2, 2021, three and a half months before the debut, he contacted Van den Berg "informing him of the requirements" to join.

In his statement, which also supports a sports investigation by the FER against the player, he cites:

. "

Days before the debut and before witnesses, he continues, "we explained to Gavin the importance of the rules to represent Spain, he claimed to understand everything and at the same time he signed his statement."

World Rugby's first statement praised Van den Berg's "refreshing sincerity" in providing full details about his travels in the summer of 2019. Weeks earlier, before the team, he had remained silent.

On February 8, Corchado quotes, he was asked again after denouncing a Russian media outlet that he had been outside of Spain for more than two months that year.

In the presence of another companion -who is proposed as a witness- he was questioned again about the duration of his trip.

"He told me again that everything was correct," the manager reaffirms.

And so it was transmitted, in the presence of the protagonist, to the entire staff in an urgent meeting.

Although Van den Berg was exonerated of the falsification of his documentation by the confessed authors - who wanted him not to occupy a place as a foreigner in the Spanish competitions - the new evidence has made the

the conviction that he was aware of the fraud

.

"I knew everything before coming to the national team," another international player told El Mundo.

As this medium published, the

does not respond to calls from his former colleagues.

He hasn't bothered to offer explanations or apologies, not even to defend his innocence.

The player's statement also dynamited -probably to exculpate himself- the defense of the FER that he could be aligned for having lived three years in a row in Spain.

Before the first judicial committee, Van den Berg maintained that he, in reality, had only felt connected to our country during the last 24 months.

Before, in December, in that declaration that he signed, he encrypted his link to "having completed 36 consecutive months of residence."

Two hardly compatible versions.

This Thursday the appearances of the witnesses who have been accepted from the Spanish appeal are scheduled.

It can be seen as a favorable preliminary step:

.

Even so, it does not seem easy to turn around the first, which established that the

should never have worn the

jersey .

But this appeal tries to reduce the punishment by refuting a central point of the first sentence.

Because the national team is part of the Federation and in that sports environment, according to the data now provided, an effort was made for the player to know and comply with the regulations.

With the paradox that it is precisely the team that has suffered the greatest sanction when seen out of the World Cup.

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