RFEF will advance the Copa del Rey by one week due to the basketball match | Relief

The National Futsal Committee of the Royal Spanish Football Federation is about to commit new nonsense under the leadership of President José Miguel Monje. The relay can confirm this The Copa del Rey, considered the great celebration of Spanish futsal, will be moved forward a week. A date that many fans have marked in red and will be moved to March 20-23 instead of March 27-30 as planned, according to the official calendar approved by the RFEF General Assembly. July 30.

The tournament, which will feature the top eight from the first round, will undergo an unprecedented date change. The reasons for this unprecedented situation are varied. On 30 March 2023, the RFEF announced with great fanfare an agreement between cities in the region of Murcia and Andalusia to host six major futsal tournaments until 2027. Failed planning that, after the dispute over the Copa del Rey in Cartagena in 2024, was blown up.

Monje assured that “following the instructions of our President Luis Rubiales, who asked us to unite cities and futsal events, organize them with much more time and, above all, give them a longer route to make visible a spectacle that can produce results at various competitions.” The President of the Murcia Regional Football Federation could not even imagine that 20 months later he would be one of the candidates to replace his former leader and that Another of the candidates, Andalusian Pablo Lozano, announced Andalusia’s refusal to host the Spanish Cup for economic reasons.

On 26 October, Pablo Lozano confirmed to Diario de Jaén, within the framework of the sixth Andalusian Football Congress, that The Junta of Andalusia announced “a few weeks ago” that it “does not intend to take on the financial costs of organizing the Copa del Rey,” estimated at 250,000 euros, despite the agreement reached with the RFEF. Thus, the candidacy of Malaga disappeared and it was also revealed that the National Futsal Committee had accepted the proposal to host it in the region of Murcia, which in this 2024–25 season is also responsible for hosting the Spanish Super Cup (18 and 19 January) and the Copa del Rey (17 and 18 May).

What seemed like a great operation by José Miguel Monje of Murcia for Murcia turned into another failed RFEF operation with political overtones. When applying for the regional capital, Not a single head of the National Futsal Committee took into account that on Saturday, March 29, UCAM Murcia was supposed to play the 25th round of the Endesa League against Morabanque Andorra at the Palacio de los Deportes stadium. Sources consulted by Relevo indicated that “an exercise of foresight” would have allowed the Murcia team to request a seventh-day match swap from the ACB, when they played and won (71-83) on November 9 on Andorran soil. Nobody did.

Now, in response to a belated request from the RFEF, UCAM has refused and remains firm in its position, despite the mediation of Miguel Angel Noguera, sports councilor of the Murcia City Council responsible for the installation, to consider participating in the planned match. on March 29 in an alternative setting. At this moment, The National Futsal Committee considered the possibility of repeating Cartagena as the venue for the second year in a row, maintaining the dates established in the First Division calendar. A scenario that, from a political point of view, could cause some tension for the director general of sport for the Murcia region, Francisco Javier Sánchez.

Finally, Attempts by President José Miguel Monje to hold the tournament in Murcia will lead to changes in the dates, which the National Futsal Committee is due to publish in the coming days. when they receive approval from the RFEF competition bodies and bureaucratically sign everything with the institutions. Thus, the Copa del Rey will take place from March 20 to 23, which will mean that up to two league matches will also have to be modified. The 23rd round, which was scheduled to take place on Tuesday, March 18, will be played on Saturday, March 29. The 24th round, which was supposed to take place on March 22, will take place on April 1. In the 25th round, the order provided for in the official calendar will be restored and will take place on April 5.

Some clubs are already talking about “another failure” and others unconditionally accept a political decision that leaves satisfied the Murcia city council, which did not want to put pressure on its basketball club, and the regional government, which intended to avoid territorial suspicions. and that a lack of planning on the part of the RFEF prevented the capital’s Sports Palace from hosting the Copa del Rey. The clubs do not matter, few know the intentions of the National Futsal Committee, and even less so the fans, many of whom have asked for early dates in the calendar as a holiday to enjoy the tournament. Although Murcia’s appointment was not official, numerous followers also booked hotel rooms.

Since the RFEF stripped the National Futsal League of its organizational powers on 19 October 2019, comparisons were inevitable. Announcing venues several months in advance, forecasting and planning the sale of tickets and subscriptions and The promotion of the Copa del Rey by the LNFS has always been haunted by the National Futsal Committee, whose leadership has caused much controversy.Its president, José Miguel Monje, responded to the criticism in an interview with ABC newspaper on February 12, 2023.

During the dispute over the Spanish Cup in Granada, the leader of Murcia assured that “everything turned out as it could have been. Where is it regulated that this needs to be done in seven months, in five or in a year? I would understand if the rule that is there established – this is non-compliance. So, what’s the problem when everyone fills the pavilion here, and the hotels are all like that, but it’s a little more expensive? “I don’t think a month’s notice is enough to get access to a room or to get access to a ticket.”

Despite the fact that even new coach Jesus Velasco admitted in his presentation that futsal “has gone through several dark years and many internal conflicts,” José Miguel Monje minimizes in a small committee the invisibility and relocation into which the Spanish Football Federation has plunged its star-studded futsal competition with a minimal audience, such as the barely 18,730 spectators who witnessed the duel between League champion Jimby Cartagena and Quesos El Hidalgo Manzanares on Teledeporte on November 9. “Perhaps this is no longer of interest,” suggested the closest circle of the President of the National Committee. Perhaps the Murcia leader was never interested in futsal.