MADRID, 17 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The National Futsal League (LNFS) was critical this Monday of the president of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), Víctor Francos, for his rejection of this sport achieving professionalization and asked him for “a minimum required respect”, highlighting “its strangeness due to the lightness and inconsistency of the arguments put forward” and that it intends to “condemn chronic amateurism” to its clubs.
“Futsal, professional? No. So resounding? So resounding,” Francos asserted in an interview with Europa Press published last Saturday, a statement that the association that has been pursuing for a long time to be professional has not liked as they have managed lately women’s football or handball, but that is running into reluctance from the Government itself, which believes that the conditions are not met.
“The LNFS wishes to reaffirm its firm will, following the mandate of its clubs, to qualify futsal as a professional sport and shows its surprise at the lightness and inconsistency of the arguments put forward by the person in charge of the Government’s political execution in the matter of sport,” the agency said in a statement.
The association, which recalled that “it brings together the majority of teams” that make up the First Division, the main category of this sport at the male level, “demands” Francos “as a government official, due prudence according to his position and the minimum respect required of an Association, which was created in 1989 by a politician -of accredited
track record and recognized solvency – such as the then Secretary of State for Sport, Javier Gómez Navarro, who opted to give clubs independence of action and management capacity, within a constructive and fruitful framework of collaboration with the RFEF”.
The body chaired by Javier Lozano stressed that that decision caused “an exponential growth of futsal at the club and national team level, which allowed them to achieve world and European champion titles.” “In the same way, there was an extraordinary increase in licenses and the LNFS became a national and world reference for other organizations,” he added.
“34 years later, Víctor Francos, with his inopportune words,
intends to condemn clubs to chronic amateurism by politically forcing an unwanted involution to sports structures, which consider that the only viable way to build the sustainable future of their sport is through professionalization,” said the LNFS.
In this sense, he warned that “the omission that Víctor Francos makes in his presentation of the clubs calls his attention, thus ignoring leaders who are carrying out an enormous daily work and a notable economic effort to become professionals, positioning the LNFS as a model of success and reference”.
Víctor Francos also indicated in the interview that the professional leagues had to “do with other things, but not with the rights of athletes.” “In a mixture of misinformation and daring, the president of the CSD categorically belittles futsal, making a fallacious comparison with handball and focusing his denialist discourse on athletes, forgetting that the consolidation of their labor rights goes through growth of the clubs, as well as their business model”, replied the LNFS.
“WE ALL KNOW WHERE THIS ANIMADVERSION COMES FROM”
The LNFS considers the leader’s position “biased” and reiterates that this professionalization “would mean the consolidation, expansion and improvement of Spanish futsal” and that “it would strengthen the economy of the clubs thanks to the centralized sale of their audiovisual rights as well as the commercial assets derived from the competition, having a positive impact, not only on the working conditions of the players, as a core element, but also on that of other essential professionals such as coaches, sports directors and all the personnel that make up the structure of the clubs”.
“Finally, although we all know where the animosity comes from to classify futsal as a legal professional, which in fact already is, from this association we are not going to give up demanding respect and equity for a sport that has given so much satisfaction and prestige. contributed to this country,” he said.