Osasuna charges against the Competition Committee for denouncing a few words from its president

Very resounding. This has been the statement that the Club Atlético Osasuna has issued tonight after knowing the opening of a sanctioning file, by the Competition Committee, to the president of the club, Luis Sabalza. The Navarrese leader made a statement on December 23 at the press conference to renew Braulio Vázquez as sports director that led the Federation to act.

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The record is produced as a result of the complaint of the Director of Security and Integrity of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Alfredo Lorenzo Mena, who in his letter accuses the president of the Rojilla entity of “attempting against the work of the arbitration group.”

Sabalza's statements included in the Osasuna statement were the following:

– “Nor can I remain silent in the face of injustices and With Osasuna injustices have been committed for many weeks”.

– “They are not addressing our players with due respect”.

– “We were notified of a sanction 18 minutes before a game, violating our right to defend ourselves and to resort in time”.

– “With the presence of the VAR to be able to answer any doubt, the punishment we are receiving is incomprehensible”.

– “I can't keep quiet either, nor do I want to, when week after week the errors always fall towards the same side ”.

– “I think we deserve more respect of which we are having ”.

In the argumentation of his complaint, as published by the Navarrese club, “Mr. Lorenzo Mena affirms that from Mr. Sabalza's statements a clear manifestation is inferred against the honesty and impartiality of the arbitration group“. According to the institution, Mr. Lorenzo Mena concludes that” these statements, far from being a healthy criticism of an exercise of freedom of expression, entail a clear attack on the work of the arbitration group and against the referees appointed for the matches, since they question impartiality and honesty ”.

The statement of the Pamplona team continues and describes its disagreement with this complaint in eight points:

“1. In his six years as president of the entity, Luis Sabalza has always respected the work of the arbitration team even when certain errors have harmed Osasuna's sporting aspirations.

2. The statements made by the president on December 23rd in no way threaten the honesty and impartiality of the referees, but rather reveal a series of errors that have seriously harmed the team this season. At no time did the president enter to assess the intentionality of these errors.

3. It is surprising that the complaint highlights statements by Luis Sabalza such as “they did not see” or “errors always fall on the same side”. It is evident that if the president speaks of the fact that the referees who are on the pitch and in the VOR room “did not see” a certain action, in no case is their honesty questioned, but rather emphasizes in a mistake that in this case hurts Osasuna. The statements cannot have another interpretation when it is the president himself who qualifies said arbitration decisions as “errors”.

4. It is incomprehensible that the complaint censures Luis Sabalza's criticism of the Competition Committee for communicating the sanction to the soccer player Aridane 18 minutes before the start of the Elche-Osasuna match. Said communication, known during the warm-up of the team at the Martínez Valero, left the club without the possibility of presenting an appeal to the Appeals Committee before the game and therefore violated their right to legitimate defense. It is unacceptable that in a high-level competition the committee that has to impose sanctions meets minutes before the start of a day. Similarly, it is not understandable that such meetings take place without the clubs involved knowing for sure when they take place. It is the responsibility of the Royal Spanish Football Federation to provide transparency to this body and the obligation of the clubs to demand that their federation function more efficiently without this being subject to sanction.

5. The complaint also censors the words of the president of Club Atlético Osasuna in which he protests because “on many occasions, they are not addressing our players with due respect.” In his conclusion, Mr. Lorenzo Mena criticizes the fact that the president did not provide “who, when or in what way this alleged lack of respect has occurred.” The words of the club president reflect the feelings of the squad and the coaching staff. However, in response to the request of Mr. Lorenzo Mena, it should be noted that, for example, on matchday 14, at Osasuna-Villarreal, the match referee, Mr. Figueroa Vázquez, went to the Osasuna bench saying “I'm going to expel someone, even if I'm wrong.” It is clear that this club respects arbitration error, but cannot tolerate that a referee threatens precisely to be wrong.

6. The file opened by the Competition Committee, in line with the sanctions that players and coaches from other clubs have received in recent times, seek, in the opinion of Club Atlético Osasuna, to gag the clubs, thus limiting their right to criticism under threat of punishment. In a world like football, where presidents, coaches and players are constantly subject to debate, it is incomprehensible that the RFEF intends to eliminate any hint of criticism by instilling fear among football professionals to exercise their freedom of expression.

7. At the press conference that is the subject of the file, the president of the club dedicated a large part of his speech to highlighting that the situation in which the team finds itself is largely the product of his own mistakes. However, it is clear that Osasuna has been seriously harmed by a series of arbitration errors that have occurred before and after the aforementioned appearance. In the same way that the club, its players and its coaches carry out a constant self-criticism of their work, it is understood that this self-criticism should also be carried out in other levels such as the arbitration group. It is not enough for the Technical Committee of Referees to presume transparency by recognizing errors without revealing “who, when or in what way they occurred”. It seems difficult that this self-criticism necessary to improve can be carried out when the criticized group (Technical Committee of Referees), the complaining group (Director of Safety and Integrity) and the sanctioning group (Competition Committee and Appeal Committee) are part of it. agency (RFEF).

8. The players of the first team of Club Atlético Osasuna, its coaching staff and the entity's employees wish to show their full support for President Luis Sabalza, the victim of an unfair complaint whose sole objective is to provoke self-censorship among soccer professionals ” .

The coach of the Navarrese team, Jagoba Arrasate, didn't bite his tongue in the preview of the second round of the Copa del Rey against Olot and criticized the referees for their performances against the red box: “It seems that you can neither speak nor give your opinion, they take away our right or freedom of expression, practically. It's time to keep insisting and I think we're getting better every day. “Osasuna ranks second to last in LaLiga, with just 14 points, and faces Real Madrid on January 9 at home.