The mayor of Huelva, Gabriel Cruz, said that he will convey to the Andalusian Football Federation his discomfort at Sevilla's new attempt to award itself “an honor that does not correspond to it” after discovering this Friday a plaque in commemoration of the 130th anniversary of what it considers the first soccer game in Spain, which faced Recreativo de Huelva in Seville.
In a statement, Cruz, indicated that this commemoration is “wrong” because andhe first match took place in the town of Minas de Riotinto, recognized as the cradle of Spanish football, in 1874.
He assured that in the past the Seville club already tried to dispute the dean of Recreativo de Huelva and recalled that the Spanish Football Federation settled the problem and agreed with the Huelva club, founded in 1889.
For the mayor of Huelva, “it is quite exasperating that history is being missed again” and demands “rigor and respect” for a club and a province, whose union with football has been going on for more than a century, due to the British presence in their lands. Specifically, in Minas de Riotinto and that later spread throughout the entire territory, also in the capital, “where today we maintain an important legacy,” he said.
“Huelva has the honor of being the province where soccer was played for the first time in Spain and of having the dean of Spanish soccer,” Cruz has asserted, “a real fact, confirmed by history, that we are not going to allow be questioned. “
Cruz thus joins the complaint made public this Friday by the mayor of Riotinto, Rocío Díaz Cano, who showed her “anger and discomfort” at “the false attributions of Seville to our history.” That is why he sent the president of the Sevilla club, José Castro, a letter in which he reminded him that “they forget that it is documented that in August 1874 soccer was already practiced in the town that I happily represent.”
Recreativo de Huelva, for its part, clarified that it declined Sevilla's invitation to participate in the inauguration of the plaque in commemoration of the 130th anniversary of the match. played by the Huelva club in Seville and qualified as the first in history in Spain to avoid controversy.
The Dean club wanted to clarify in a statement that in its spirit of maintaining “cordial relations” with all clubs and institutions, it will not participate in any act or initiative that could generate “tension among its fans or controversies and clashes with other hobbies “.
Along these lines, Recreativo indicated that they feel “proud to vindicate the origins of Spanish football in the province of Huelva and, more specifically, in Minas de Riotinto”, something that has been “widely documented.”
He also stated that there are “generated doubts” regarding the circumstances surrounding the celebration of this meeting in 1890 and which have been “widely argued by various historians”Therefore, he considers that “they collide with the rigor required by the history” of the club, to which “we owe ourselves, and, therefore, we do not have the necessary documentary certainty to participate in this act”, they conclude.
In this sense, he pointed out that it should be noted that Since 1881 there is a documentary record of the matches that the Riotinto and Huelva clubs played continuously, which “at that time were not yet official.”
Riotinto Balompié, also a centenary club, spoke on its social networks about this matter and expressed that it would be “beautiful and emotional” for Recreativo de Huelva, dean of Spanish football, to come to Riotinto to “certify and remember where and who they were the pioneers in starting football in Spain “.