He had been announcing for many years that he would do it and today he has taken the step. The Basque Football Federation has submitted to FIFA and UEFA the formal request for integration as a full member. Representatives of the autonomous body, accompanied by members of the Basque Government, have gone to the headquarters of FIFA, in Zurich, and UEFA, in Nyon, where they have registered the aforementioned request, accompanied by the relevant legal and administrative documentation that supports the same. Of course, they were not received. The EFF-FVF thus fulfills the mandate approved by the practical unanimity of its General Assembly (44 votes cast, 43 favorable and 1 abstention) on December 12, 2018 in Durango.
Luis María Elustondo, president of La Vasca that is running out of term, has led the delegation. On the part of the Basque Government, the Director of Physical Activity and Sports, Jon Redondo, as well as the lawyer David Salinas-Armendariz, has been displaced. After the formal registration of the integration application, they have publicly vindicated the “legal viability and effective possibility” of international representation by the Basque Football Federation.
“Through this formal request for integration we comply not only with what is required by the General Assembly of the EFF-FVF, but also with the majority desire of Basque society. It is a legitimate and absolutely viable objective from a legal point of view, as demonstrated by the integration of other European territories that are not independent states and the historical journey of their national teams (with or without their own league). Likewise, we have expressed our intention to undertake an integration agreed between the parties, and the EFF-FVF has notified the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) of its willingness to open a negotiation period to agree on the terms of the same “, has indicated the lawyer.
Among the documentation delivered by the Basque Football Federation is a copy of its Statutes; an informative dossier which includes the historical journey of the EFF-FVF and the Euskal Selekzioa since 1915; a legal report issued by the Basque Government where the representative capacity of the EFF-FVF is motivated and founded; a copy of the agreement approved by the General Assembly of the EFF-FVF of Durango; or the official notification delivered to the RFEF in order to open a negotiation period to reach an agreement on that issue.
In all this documentation, the Basque Football Federation argues the “legal viability and effective possibility” of the exercise of international representation by this
body, “both of individual athletes and of the Basque National Teams”, while stressing that, for this, the historical desire of Basque football “must materialize at this time with the integration of the EFF-FVF into the corresponding international associations, mainly FIFA, the world governing authority for the sport of football ”.
Likewise, in accordance with Article 11 of the FIFA Statutes, the Basque Football Federation has informed the body that governs football at the international level that, in addition to having submitted its application to join UEFA, has notified the RFEF of its willingness to “open a negotiation period to reach an agreement that includes formal authorization by the RFEF”, since these Statutes include the necessary authorization from the FIFA member federation of the State (in this case, Spain) to which the requesting federation belongs (section 6 of said article 11).
Thus, taking into account these circumstances, the request of the Basque Football Federation is based on three points:
1. Formal request by the Basque Football Federation for direct integration as a full member. For this purpose, the Basque Football Federation has requested the instruction of a common and joint file between FIFA and UEFA in which all the formal statutory requirements that the EFF-FVF must observe for effective integration in both organizations are fulfilled and can also materialize an agreement between all parties. In this agreement, the entry conditions of the EFF-FVF would be specified with the acquiescence of the RFEF, allowing a period of one year to close the aforementioned agreement. The agreement with the RFEF would include the agreed terms for integration.
2. In relation to this point, the EFF-FVF has requested that a reasoned opinion be issued where FIFA and UEFA specify the conditions and requirements that, in the specific case of the EFF-FVF, it is necessary to complete for its definitive admission to both bodies ( in the event that no one of them meets today).
3. The EFF-FVF has expressed its firm commitment, total disposition and good faith in order to work “to remove the existing obstacles and comply with all the requirements that are presented for an integration agreed between all the parties.” As they have underlined, the objective is to materialize the historical desire of Basque football, legally represented by the Federation and clearly expressed in the associative agreement adopted at the December 2018 General Assembly in Durango.
The promoters of this initiative argue that this request for official recognition by FIFA and UEFA meets the demand of the EFF-FVF General Assembly and is part of the new dynamic that the Basque Football Federation and the Government Basque have been promoting with the aim of promoting the Euskal Selekzioa. Since the beginning of the year, these two institutions have been energizing a work table with the aim of generating a new context around the Euskal Selekzioa and relaunching this project. In addition to the two institutions, clubs, players and agents favorable to promoting the Basque national teams participate in this working group.
The short-term objective is, therefore, to relaunch the Euskal Selekzioa project and, once the health situation allows it, to reconnect with the Basque fans, as it has been doing throughout its long history.