The noise of the cannons thunders again in the Spanish futsal war, a conflict that has lasted for some four years and that places the National Futsal League (LNFS) and the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) in the trenches facing each other. with control of the elite of this sport as the ultimate goal to be achieved.
The management of the clubs lost management in October 2019, when the Federation decided to take the reins, alleging that the agreement between the two institutions had expired for years. Since then, and in the midst of a constant judicial confrontation between the two, it has seen how its functions have been reduced to the point that currently, in addition to representing the teams that remain in the association, it only maintains the exploitation of television rights, which will end next summer.
The only option left to the LNFS to recover its old role, or at least wrest it from the RFEF to return it to the clubs in whatever format, is through the professionalization of futsalfollowing the path of other sports such as handball with the Asobal League or women’s soccer with the F League.
With this objective, Javier Lozano, its president, in addition to making the official request, held a meeting with the president of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), José Manuel Franco, to make progress on this issue. Although the representative of the Government listened to the proposal, the feeling of the applicants is that he was not very keen on carrying it out.
Proposal not of Law and response of the RFEF
Perhaps that is why in recent days a new way has appeared. Last Wednesday, March 1, the sports spokesperson for the Popular Party, javier merino, presented a Non-Legal Proposal to be debated in the Culture and Sports Commission of Congress and the CSD ends up qualifying Futsal as a professional sport. A way to promote the process that intends to follow the example of League F, announced by the Government in March 2021 and approved by the CSD in June of that same year.
Mr. Merino refuses to listen to or speak to the RFEF, but presents non-legal proposals to harm the RFEF. What interest is hidden behind this?
You should know – at least – that such irresponsible attitudes affect Spain’s options for the 2030 World Cup. https://t.co/3YLNx2NHJZ
— RFEF (@rfef) March 5, 2023
The initiative of the deputy from La Rioja did not sit well with the RFEF, which responded to the news of the presentation of the Non-Ley Proposal with a strong message through social networks. In it, he accused Merino of refusing to speak with the federation and of working to harm it. A question was also asked: «What interest is hidden behind this?».
He also described his attitude as “irresponsible” and assured that it jeopardized the options of Spain’s candidacy -shared with Portugal and Ukraine- to host the 2030 World Cup.
The surprising message, by the means by which it was transmitted, has in turn had a response from the LNFS, which on Monday issued an official statement in this regard.
«The National Futsal League publicly requests the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, not to try to influence any public representative in the performance of their duties. Urges the federative entity to refrain from conditioning any debate or vote of the different political groups in the Committee on Culture and Sports of the Congress of Deputies, for the sake of transparency, legality, exemplarity and the utmost respect for the democratic values that must be demanded of an institution like the RFEF”, picks up the note.
«The Association considers it absolutely inappropriate to disqualify a national deputy like Javier Merino and immediately urges the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, and the general secretary, Andreu Camps, to explain in detail what the alleged interests would be. They would allegedly hide behind the presentation of a Non-Legal Proposal by the Popular Party to ensure that Futsal has the qualification of a professional nature. An institution like the RFEF cannot make such an extremely serious accusation against the Sports spokesman of the main opposition party in a veiled manner »he continues.
Similarly, the LNFS shows its firm conviction that Spain would organize a magnificent Soccer World Cup in 2030 and strongly requests the president of the Royal Spanish Soccer Federation, Luis Rubiales, to detail in detail how it could affect a country that The simple fact that any parliamentary group can present non-legal proposals through which they formulate resolution proposals to the Chamber is prepared to host all kinds of events, as the Popular Parliamentary Group has done with the professionalization of Futsal, in based on article 193 and following of the current regulations of the Congress of Deputies”.
The LNFS redoubles its offensive
Along with the response to the RFEF’s message on social networks, the LNFS states in its statement that it will resume “the meetings with all political forces in search of unanimous support to obtain the recognition of professional sport”, after the presentation of this Proposition not of Law. “Futsal, by history, by figures and by results, deserves to obtain the qualification of Professional League, as well as Other sports such as Women’s Soccer and Handball have already achieved it, “argues its president Javier Lozano.
“It is a political decision to achieve a historical claim, far from any ideological nuance.” As Lozano himself recounted in a recent interview on ABC, “in 2018, we were already prepared to make the leap: we are a benchmark in 174 countries and we have improved the pavilions, in addition to having made regulations to improve the product, the broadcasts and up to a pedagogical economic control. We were already a professional league in fact, but not by law, and that is what we are going to ask for, scrupulously following all the regulatory channels, as we have done up to now to all the parliamentary groups in the Congress of Deputies,” he added. Lush.
The LNFS, which has organized the competition since its creation in 1989, continues to work for the benefit of its associated clubs, and awaits a response to the request officially and unanimously presented on October 7, 2022 before the CSD Board of Directors to their qualification as a professional, based on the fact that the competition meets the requirements, which the Sports Law itself, in its article 46.2 establishes, and which are: the existence of labor ties between the clubs and athletes and the importance and economic dimension of the competition.
In order to demonstrate them, the LNFS has prepared a report that includes in detail the current figures of economic and media return generated by the First Division of Futsal and its clubs. Some figures and data that he had already sent to the CSD in July 2022, as well as to the sports deputies of the different Political Groups: PSOE, PP, Unidas Podemos, Ciudadanos and VOX, with whom Javier Lozano had maintained since 2020 various meetings.
According to employer sources, the LNFS has a budget of 2.4 million euros for 2022-2023, 14.3% more than in 2021-2022, and expects to return to profit, with a positive result of between 20,000 euros and 40,000 euros. It currently has an agreement with LaLigaSportsTV until the end of this season and distributes 1.4 million euros among its associates. The clubs of the Spanish Futsal competition received in the 2021-2022 season a media return of 131 million euros for the 417 live broadcasts that the competition carried out.
Opposition from some clubs
However, the idea of professionalization has not caught on among all Spanish clubs, as many of them fear that the obligations that it entails will cause their disappearance. Manuel Sierra, a member of the RFEF National Futsal Committee and president of Servigroup Peñíscola, today the leader in second division and one of the first four clubs to leave the LNFS in 2019, explained to ABC that “although with the new sports law You don’t have to be a SAD, there are some requirements that we don’t even joke about, I wish we did. And like his club, many others.
«A period of adaptation is needed, to strengthen labor relations… it seems that everything is sponsorship, joy, champagne, and here we have our miseries like any sport. And these miseries or we solve them before, having people working conditions, or we are not going anywhere. And that takes time.” he added.
For Sierra, professionalization is “the only way of personal subsistence” for Javier Lozano, while stressing that “professionalizing from today to tomorrow is not viable. Look at the Asobal league, the slap they have given each other…»