Court annuls football strike
Friday, May 15, 2015 @ 5:48 PM
SPAIN'S National Court has called off the Spanish football strike which was threatening the First and Second Division Championship finals - and quite possibly the Champions' League final between Barça FC and Juventus, too.
The Professional Football League (LFP) brought the case against the Association of Spanish Footballers (AFE) in a bid to stop the strike before it went ahead on Saturday.
For the case to go ahead, the LFP had to deposit €5 million with the National Court as a guarantee fund.
According to the judge's verdict, not proceeding with the final national matches of the season would effectively create an organisational nightmare which could never be resolved - non-Spanish players on various teams have commitments to their national sides, such as Brazil's Neymar and Argentina's Messi for the American Cup (Copa de América) immediately after the end of the Spanish season.
And footballers' own annual leave could be affected, says the court.
It rejected the AFE's appeal on the grounds that the right to strike was contained within the Spanish Constitution, saying this right only applies when exercising it would not cause public chaos.
The strike was called by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) in light of ongoing discussions about distribution of income from TV footage, which has always been biased towards the 'duopoly' of Barça FC and Real Madrid FC, Spain's two biggest teams.
A collective negotiation agreement was set to be introduced and a Bill of Law passed by the Council of Ministers, which looked likely to settle the argument – even Barça and Real had been persuaded of the unfairness of their getting the lion's share of TV revenue.
The RFEF says it was not consulted on the Bill of Law and its terms – some of which the Federation does not agree with – have been unilaterally decided by the central government.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com