With the referee's strike stopping the debut of the F League, Saturday's day began with surreal images such as those seen in the fields of Atlético de Madrid and the newly promoted Alhama, the two games that were supposed to open the day. Despite the non-appearance of the arbitration team, both teams have appeared on the field of play until the matches have been officially suspended. Audience in the stands, DAZN connecting live to offer a historic season openly... and a sense of frustration that extended from the fans to the players, including the clubs themselves.
Despite the fact that last night the Technical Committee of Referees ratified the strike of the collegiate members and called a press conference next Monday in which its reasons will be explained, the Professional Women's Soccer League (LPFF) has confirmed that all the clubs will appear at their matches and that these will be suspended one by one in case of non-appearance of the referees.
It will be the scenario that FC Barcelona will find tomorrow. The general manager of the women's team, Markel Zubizarreta, appeared this morning before the media, who were summoned for the previous press conference by coach Jonatan Giráldez. Zubizarreta has confirmed that the team will travel to Les Planes tomorrow: "We will prepare for the match in the same way, we have pre-match training today and tomorrow we will show up to play the match". "We believe that it is important to give an image of a professional league and, honestly, I think that not playing the first day we would not be giving this image," says the general manager.
The azulgrana regrets the situation that has come about and assures that it is not "a global problem". “It is not just a problem for the Referees Technical Committee. There are a number of entities that have to come to an agreement and they have not done so, as has happened to us in many things in which the League, Federation and CSD have not agreed. They have to sit down at a table and agree on regulations and operations that are consistent with what a professional league represents, ”he demands.
Zubizarreta is sympathetic, but regrets that action has been taken with so little margin: “We understand the demands of all parties, but we also understand that they had to be made in a certain time and manner. All the organizations must do what is best for women's football, and the best thing was to treat things with time and try to reach agreements to evolve”.
"We are late for everything, we learned the number of non-community players two days before the market closes, now the arbitrations... Everything had to have been done on time to be able to start the league when it was time," says the Barça team's sports manager, who warns that "the big losers are the players and the coaching staff who have been working for a month and a half to start today." "If we started the League a week later, the holidays could have been extended, the planning of the training sessions would have been different...", he points out.
Now, and in the absence of knowing if an agreement will be reached in time to play the next day, the unknown is how these suspended games will fit into an already congested calendar: "We hope that an agreement can be reached, even if it is last minute and be able to play. We have not even considered that we do not play. We only have 5-6 weeks without double shifts, it is unsustainable. I don't know how it will fit in”, he ventures.
