Valencia host Eibar at Mestalla on Sunday, which will be one of the stadiums that will open to the public for the first time after the authorization of Health to the attendance of spectators in the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands. Valencia has been working for months on the protocol for the return of the public and despite the pressure of time it has to organize the device for this meeting, the details are ready. The club, however, is waiting for the League to ratify the Health decision before evaluating the opening of Mestalla.
The Valencia, when buying tickets, which will be done exclusively online, will prioritize the sale based on the compensation criteria chosen by the subscribers for the games that already had to be played behind closed doors at the end of the 2019/20 season. Valencia, which maintained the status of partners free of charge to all who were in the aforementioned campaign, offered three options to compensate for the games they could not attend. Option 1 was not to request compensation, option 2 was to request a refund of only 25% and the third, the full refund of the proportional part of the games that were played behind closed doors.
A] Yes, 6,000 subscribers opted for option 1, 26,000 for option 2 and around 8,000 for option 3. In this way, waiting to know how much public will be able to access Mestalla on Sunday for the game against Eibar, The 6000 who chose option 1 will have priority when buying the tickets that are put on sale, with an added discount of 50%. Said fans will have a deadline to be determined. In any case, the sale will be made by purchase order until the 5000 that Health would allow is exhausted, that is, without raffles or pre-established order. If those 6000 of option 1 will not complete the allowed capacity, a term would be opened for the subscribers of option 2. Everything is said, this is what the Valencia protocol dictates, which has not yet made official that the Mestalla will open on Sunday.
Villarreal and Castellón, waiting for the League statement
Valencia-Eibar is not the only professional football match to be held this coming weekend in the Valencian Community, which is in phase 1 of sanitary measures due to the pandemic. On Saturday at 4:00 p.m. the Castellón-Ponferradina in Castalia and on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. the Villarreal-Seville in The Ceramics. The two clubs in the province of Castellón have, like Valencia, prepared their protocol, although neither will move a file until they receive the official communication from the League, which has to decide whether to assume that in some stadiums there is an audience and in others not when the clubs risk their future.