Club football is back but not for all teams. Atlético de Madrid and Granada will not play this weekend as the Higher Sports Council has confirmed their suspension.
The reason is the transfer of the South American footballers to play their respective qualifying matches for the Qatar 2022 World Cup. When the FIFA calendar was approved, only two days of CONMEBOL were to be played during the national team breaks, but then a new one was introduced. third date so that more than one footballer has to play at dawn on Friday making it impossible for him to arrive in time for the league game, in some cases only 24 hours before said game.
Atlético de Madrid, as Real Madrid has done or Sevilla and FC Barcelona did at the time, requested the postponement of the match against Granada and CSD has ruled in their favor.
“In view of the above considerations, and in use of the powers that I have legally conferred, I resolve to grant the precautionary measure requested by Mr. Javier Tebas Medrano López, on behalf of the LNFP, consisting of granting the requested postponement. This request of postponement responds to the already known fact of the extension by FIFA of the international period of Conmebol selections until Thursday night, October 14 (early morning of Friday 15, in Spain) and that affects, among others, the aforementioned clubs that they must play their official UEFA Champions League matches on Tuesday 19 October, “the statement said.
This same argument was the one that CSD also used to suspend Sevilla – FC Barcelona and Villarreal – Alavés in the break in September.
In addition, Atlético de Madrid receives Liverpool at the Wanda Metropolitano on Tuesday in the third day of the Champions League, so the clash against Granada could not be postponed to Sunday since they would not comply with the statutory rest hours required by UEFA between both encounters.
And while LaLiga celebrates the decision to postpone the meeting, the Royal Spanish Football Federation is opposed since it considers that the CSD is not competent to postpone the meetings, but its judicial claim is still in the process of being resolved.
Had the Granada-Atlético de Madrid played this Saturday, Diego Simeone would have lost several players. Ángel Correa and Rodrigo De Paul play with Argentina on Friday at 1:30 in the morning, Luis Suárez does it with Uruguay also on Friday at 2:30 and Matheus Cunha with Brazil precisely against the Charruas.
This day the Real Madrid match against Athletic Club has also been postponed for the same reason. Therefore, there are already four postponed league games for which a date will have to be found on the calendar.
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