San Mamés celebrates the return

San Mamés deliver today activities in the morning, afternoon and night. For breakfast, a General Assembly of delegates in that North stand that Elizegi tries to make animation. In the afternoon, on the stadium esplanade, the Bilbao Night Marathon, what has been a Night raceCome on, without that Anglo-Saxon varnish for which he has now given many in the sports field.

And at night, the main course, a Athletic-Villarreal (follow the match live on AS.com). A match that ends 22 days hiatus in Bilbao, due to the commitments of the national teams and the postponement of the clash against Madrid for the CONMEBOL. It is a double return, since finally, 601 days later, the Cathedral can be filled again, stripped of the restrictions due to COVID. The March 1, 2020 Bilbao’s stadium was the scene of a league clash between rojiblancos and ‘groguets’ 36,350 fans attended, the last full-capacity event until today. It closed with 1-0, a goal by Raúl García from a penalty.

Apart from those ingredients, the main one is that Europe is in the heads of both sets. The Athletic has taken advantage of the long break to recover people, like Villalibre, Zárraga and Nico Williams. Núñez and Yuri are not there yet.

The Villarreal regained air with the Champions League victory against him Young Boys, in a game in which he recovered hit, but suffered behind. Emery’s team continues to seek balance on the field. Being a team that lose little, but what it is costing him winr. It is true that the absences in attack have weighed them down, so the recovery of Moreno, Alcácer, Chukwueze and Day, it may be the key to breaking out to win. The people of Castellón come from losing at home against Osasuna, in a game in which they did not deserve to lose, but in which they failed in both areas. This is the first defeat of the season, although they have reacted in Europe.

The emery team He arrives with a high load of matches, but it does not seem that there will be rotations. The Albiol doubt after receiving a blow to the head, although it seems that he will play. The entrance of Stupiñán in band, after being absent the last two games; the return to eleven of Trigueros, who rested in Bern; and the option to enter Alcacer up, what would be rest for Danjuma o Pino, it would be the bouquet of variations of the usual equipment.

Elizegi faces his last Ordinary Assembly before the elections

Elizegi faces this Saturday in San Mamés the last of his Ordinary Assemblies as president of Athletic before new elections in the rojiblanco club, which are expected for the month of June, the deadline set by the Bilbao chef when he was imposed in the elections at the end of 2018.

It is an appointment, the one that attends compromise partners of the entity, which has been complicated since his arrival to the presidency in Elizegi. That narrowly surpassed the first, in 2019, and saw how the accounts were thrown back and dthey approved of its managementn in the second, in 2020.

As a consequence of this rejection, a Extraordinary assembly later in which to the Board of Directors if the accounts were approved but not one management that remains unsuccessful. However, tomorrow’s Assembly will be different in its composition to that of the last few occasions because, as the statutes indicate, last June the delegate members that form it were renewed after completing their four-year term.

For today the easier things to Elizegi, who between the pandemic and its devastating effect and the successive non-classifications for Europe have embittered his presidency economically and socially.

The Basque club has valued in 70 million euros the impact of the pandemic in the three seasons in which it has affected, those of 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22, although they have been able to reduce those numbers at the accounting level to 51.7 million due to the “resignation of employees and players apart of their salaries “, as explained a few days ago by the president himself, the club’s accountant, Jon Ander de las Fuentes, and the general director, Jon Berasategi.

By not be in Europe, De las Fuentes calculates that Athletic stop logging in “between 8 and 14 million” each season. Athletic also regrets that a increased tax burden derived from a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union has added 30 million more deficit to its accounts.

The Board chaired by Elizegi expects raise about 5 million euros with a so-called ‘covid fee’ of 120 euros to each partner who will propose at the Assembly. Although in no case would any member pay more than what is stipulated in their annual fee, which has not increased in recent seasons.

As it is, the Athletic Board of Directors will present today to the partners for their approval a balance of the 2020-2 season1 with a negative balance of 24.6 million, This figure practically coincides with the money from membership fees that was completely stopped in 2020.

And will also try approve a budget For the course 2021-22 of 135.4 million euros, with the estimate of 5.5 million losses due to the latest effects of COVID. Losses you expect do not affect economically As of this month after the lifting of sanitary restrictions and the authorization to occupy one hundred percent of the capacity of San Mamés already from this Saturday’s game against Villarreal in La Catedral.