There were a couple of hours this Friday afternoon in Seville during which it could have extended even more between Barcelona and Real Madrid in La Cartuja (22.00, La1). He prevented the flames from growing a succession of conversations and meetings in which, according to various sources involved in the process, the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Rafael Louzán, participated mainly; the president of the Technical Referee Committee, Luis Medina Cantalejo; the president of the Superior Sports Council, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes; the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez; and its executive general director, José Ángel Sánchez.
The crisis began to form at the end of the morning at the Cartuja stadium, where the referees designated for the final, Ricardo de Burgos Bengoechea, and Pablo González Fuertes, appeared at a press conference in which the one who complained about the criticisms they receive. Real Madrid TV videos lamented, but also the messages issued by other clubs through various media and the attacks they receive on social networks. González Fuertes, responsible for the VAR in the final, about to retire, announced an imminent change in the way of facing an environment they consider harmful: “That those that are being taken. We will not continue allowing what is happening happens. In a few dates you possibly have certain news about what will happen,” he warned. Among other things, they prepare to become association, with the possibility of syndicating, something that was not possible in the previous contractual situations.
The appearance ended with Burgos Bengoechea, the field referee, in tears: “When a son of yours goes to school and there are children who tell her your father is a thief, and arrives home crying, that is very fucking.”
The staging outraged Madrid, which had already expressed in public its distrust of the arbitration estate with one in which it assured that the system was “corrupted from within.” The first gesture to the outside was to cancel their participation in the planned previous acts: the photo of the coaches and the captains at 19.00, the press wheels at 19.15, the training in the stadium at 20.00 and the official dinner at Real Alcázar at 20.00. It was the first step, while club sources slid to some media that weigh did not dispute the final the next day.
When the Federation knew the first cancellations of Madrid, it activated its diplomatic machinery to try to placate the flames, both of the club and a sector of the referees. The studied appearance of the morning responded to the deep discomfort of the collective caused not only by criticism, but for the feeling of helplessness that regrets inside. They believe that the Federation has not protected them enough and also feel even more vulnerable at a time when a new arbitration model is being outlined whose final details have not yet been completely defined.
The place where diplomatic maneuvers were more visible was the Torre Sevilla Hotel, north of Triana. At 19.20 Medina Cantalejo was preparing to leave him with his wife, heading to the official dinner, when, as the being told, they required him to return to the crisis cabinet with Louzán; the general secretary of the Federation, Álvaro de Miguel; the general director, Manuel Lalinde; and the Director of Communication, Marisa González.
Louzán had a long telephone conversation with José Ángel Sánchez with the intention of contemporary and lower the tension. However, in Madrid they attribute more weight to another call, which occurred between Florentino Pérez and Uribes, very interested in saving a party that the government understands that it has a huge representative burden of Spanish football. In addition, thousands of fans had already arrived in Seville, on Friday, especially from Barcelona, and a few more thousands, especially from Madrid, prepared their trip for the next day.
In those hours of crossing calls and meetings, the communications also had their role. Madrid issued a rather hard at 19.58 in which it argued that the statements of the referees demonstrated their “animosity and hostility” towards one of the teams participating in the final of the next day, and asked the Federation and the CTA that “the corresponding measures in defense of the prestige of the institutions they represent.”
A group of referees understood that they should stage their support to De Burgos Bengoechea and González Fuertes with a public gesture and began to prepare their own statement. They believed that Louzán, which, like Medina Cantalejo, never considered replacing the members of the final, had not been resounding enough in their public support for the designation, which he attributed to the CTA without more explicit support. He also bothered to say in public that he did not know the Madrid statement. The text was elaborated, but Louzán managed to deactivate its dissemination through the official federative channels and, with it, add another piece of fuel to the fire.
At 20.20 Medina Cantalejo reappeared in the lobby of the Torre Sevilla hotel, where Louzán, even on the phone, did not arrive until almost half an hour later. The waters began to go down more serene.
Less than two hours later, at 22.06, Real Madrid issued a second statement that was considered definitive: “Given the rumors that have emerged in the last hours, Real Madrid CF communicates that our team has never considered giving up playing the final,” he said. “Our club understands that the unfortunate and inappropriate statements of the arbitrators appointed for this party, made 24 hours before the final, cannot stain a sporting event of world transcendence that will see hundreds of millions of people and out of respect also all the fans who have planned their displacement to Seville, and all those who are already in the Andalusian capital.”
After midnight, the group of referees who had prepared the statement that deactivated Louzán sent the text to some media, such as the COPE: “The arbitrators and professional arbitras of Spanish football wish to show their support for the criticisms and pressures received after the press conference made by the classmates who will direct tomorrow the great final of the Copa de His Majesty the King,” began.
They were embedded, but the main body of the fire seemed to have been extinguished less than 24 hours from the eighth classic in history in a cup final.
