Real Madrid’s request to postpone his opening match for the 2025-26 Liga season was refused, said League president Javier Tebas.
Athletics Tuesday that Madrid had submitted a first match request against Osasuna, scheduled for August 19, delayed due to their involvement in the last stages of the club World Cup.
Madrid left the semi-final tournament on Wednesday with a 4-0 defeat against the European Champions Paris Saint-Germain, 40 days ahead of their opening League match offered against Osasuna. An agreement with the AFE (Association of Spanish Professional Footballers) players are entitled to three weeks of continuous vacation per year, leaving an 18-day window for a pre-season.
As indicated by Associated PressTebas said that the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) made the decision not to move the first match of the Madrid season and that the Liga agrees with this result.
“I think they will have 20 days to rest instead of 21 years and no other league like the Premier League for Chelsea or French Ligue 1 for PSG changes the matches,” said Tebas.
“So I don’t think we should change the calendar for this reason, in particular by thinking that it is a question of a day.”
Sources told Athletics that in May the two Spanish teams in competition at the Club World Cup, Madrid and Atletico Madrid, as well as their respective captains, Dani Carvajal and Koke, concluded an agreement with the Liga, the RFEF and the AFE to postpone the first league accessories of these clubs if they reached the quarter -final of the competition.
According to AFE sources, this was for health reasons and to ensure that the teams would have at least three weeks of pre-season before the first Liga matches of 2025-2026.
Madrid, who challenged 68 games during the 2024-25 season, has not yet planned the pre-season matches.
Thibaut Courtois, the Madrid goalkeeper, said on Wednesday that he wanted Osasuna’s match to be postponed in the interest of his health and his teammates. The Belgian international also challenged Tebas’s critical vision on the club World Cup, in which the 62 -year -old said he wanted the competition to be “eliminated”.
Courtois said: “To listen to these comments from a president, it is something that I have not seen in Italy, or in England, nor in the NBA and the NFL. It’s good if Tebas does not like the club World Cup, but it exists. This is part of the FIFA calendar.
“We are here in competition, and it seems that this gentleman just wants to be the objective center. I have never seen a president of another competition speak like that. The health of the players is at stake.”
In October, Pep Guardiola said that the Premier League “had not allowed” Club World Cup Manchester City and Chelsea to postpone their opening matches of 2025-2026 to allow players to recover. City was eliminated from the tournament by Al Hilal on July 1, while Chelsea reached the final, where they will face PSG on Sunday. Chelsea and Manchester City received the Premier League opening matches respectively on August 17 and 16.
When approached to comment in October, the Premier League said that it was an example of the challenges that the national leagues would face following changes in the football calendar made by FIFA.
In May 2024, FifPro and the World League Association, which represents the world professional football leagues, threatened FIFA with legal action for the programming of the club World Cup. The director of World Football replied by saying that he had assured that the well-being of the players was safeguarded and that the tournament calendar had been aligned on the international match calendar to allow enough time before the start of the new season.
(Buda Mendes / Getty Images)