RFEF and players' union boycott CSD meeting with LNFS
The CSD wants to intervene in non-professional sport, in view of the RFEF's position.
The CSD (Spanish Sports Higher Council) chaired by Irene Lozano has decided to take action on the issue of "non-professionalised sport", which the RFEF (Spanish Football Federation) is capable of renaming, but unable to manage. Futsal, second-tier and third-tier football and women's football continue to be caught up in a web of federations trying to wear down the bodies that actually administer these competitions.
Irene Lozano has put the future of futsal in the hands of a diplomat. Joaquín de Arístegui is the general director of the CSD that is going to bring order to the chaos of the federation with this sport. Arístegui has been representing Spain in diplomatic missions since 1992. Romania, El Salvador, Thailand, Beijing, Trinidad and Tobago... untying the knot that blocks futsal will not be a problem for a guy who has had to stop the RFEF after a letter that is as incendiary as it is cowardly.
Joaquín de Arístegui accepted the proposal of the LNFS (National futsal league), ProLiga and ACFF (Women's Soccer Teams Association) for a meeting where the problems that the RFEF is generating to these sports would be exposed. The general director already pointed out that the meetings of the famous RFEF committees where the start of the competitions was decided had taken place without his knowledge. First warning.
Once the meeting had been set for Friday 4th September, the RFEF and the Futsal Players Association decided to boycott what might happen there, lest the CSD take away their Futsal competitions and the castles in the sand that they have built around the sport.
Andreu Camps is the executing hand of Luis Rubiales at the RFEF. The president is still missing because the elections proclaiming him lord and master of football cannot be held. Camps is the plumber who fixes the damage to the federation and the stress is leading him to make mistakes. Marca has published the letter that the RFEF's own general secretary sent to the CSD on the occasion of next Friday's meeting. A letter full of provocations and warnings that ends with a paragraph where he says that the meeting "would have serious immediate consequences" to end in the purest Sicilian style warning that "it goes without saying that we trust that such a meeting will never take place". There is something they fear in Las Rozas.
The response from the CSD was immediate and is the second warning for the RFEF. "We do not engage in this kind of provocation. The meeting will take place because this CSD meets with whoever requests it, as it cannot be otherwise as we are public servants," a text predictably signed by Arístegui who has in his hand to stop the bleeding of futsal and the other sports that the Federation claims to support.
The latest player to enter this war is the Association of Futsal Players (AJFS) which has long been posting comments on Twitter against the management of the LNFS. Now it has wanted to torpedo the meeting by publishing a tweet where it doubts that the LNFS represents the futsal clubs (it must be remembered that it now represents 70% and has represented everyone until months ago). It supports the text with a cut-out from an internal document of the RFEF Futsal Professional Committee. To give repercussion to its complaint, it quotes Irene Lozano, the CSD and the Minister of Culture and Sport. And to let them know about its manoeuvre it also quotes the RFEF and the LNFS. Gasoline on fire by the players' union presided over by Antonio García-Plata. By the way, García-Plata has also been a member of the RFEF's Board of Directors since 2018 and recently revealed in an interview that his union has been receiving an annual subsidy from the RFEF of 200,000 euros since 2019. He also recently referred to the association that has represented futsal since 1989 as "the extinct LNFS". The hashtag on his Twitter account reads "Let's get them, they're few". Go for it. Well, more battle.
The world of Futsal has taken positions in this contest that has already reached the CSD. Irene Lozano was elected by Pedro Sánchez and the President of the Government has a good relationship with Rubiales. She will not be the one to take away the candy of futsal from the RFEF. But she has made a move by allowing an expert in diplomacy to intervene. Meanwhile, the LNFS and the PP (conservative party in Spain) joined forces to present a request to Congress asking that futsal be made a professional sport. The meeting will be held at the CSD, the same place where 37 years ago a violent confinement of the directors of the Spanish Futsal Federation took place in another war that took the sport away.
