UD Lanzarote has submitted a letter to the Cabildo requesting the "immediate" opening of the Sports City. It considers that the institution is "exceeding its powers" by having "prohibited it from training and playing" in the facilities.
The club has taken this measure after learning last Monday of the decision of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) to resume competition in the Third Division. Since then, it states that the legal services of UD Lanzarote have not stopped working "to find the appropriate formulas so that the interests of the rojillo club are not harmed".
Thus, on Thursday they presented a letter to the Health Department of the Cabildo, with a copy to the Presidency and the Department of Sports, demanding "to be able to resume training and play the scheduled matches" at the Sports City. Specifically, Rosalía Ortega Pradillo, representing UD Lanzarote, has filed a request for urgent exceptional measures "in relation to the Cabildo's decision to suspend sports activity, which is causing serious damage to the entity".
"The situation generated will force the club to participate in the national competition without having been able to train, and competing without preparation means that both the muscles and the heart work at a rhythm for which they are not conditioned," they say from UD Lanzarote.
"Very serious" damages that could lead to "relegation"
The letter recalls that the club participates in the Third Division of National Football, "that is, in a competition of state scope." Thus, "it is understood that the prevention measures to deal with the Covid-19 crisis in the Canary Islands do not affect the rojillo club in its point 3.14, which states that the non-professional practice of regional or island scope is prohibited."
"It is understood that the Cabildo of Lanzarote is exceeding its powers and UD Lanzarote has been prohibited from training and playing, since being a club that participates in a state competition, it is being treated as if it participated in a purely island competition, when it is indisputably national," he adds.
UD Lanzarote states that if the competition resumes without being able to train and play the matches, there will be "very serious and irreparable damages, which go beyond the simple fact of participating in the competition, since it would entail, among other things, relegation."
According to the club, the letter points out that "the accumulated incidence of covid-19 per 100,000 inhabitants in Lanzarote does not reach that registered in other geographical areas," and that "in them federated sport has not been forced to stop its activity despite a higher accumulated incidence of cases." "All this because sport is an essential activity and the cases of covid-19 in the field of sports practice have been very few compared to other activities," he adds.
Therefore, it demands the "immediate" opening of the Sports City, "for the purposes of initially being able to train and subsequently play the corresponding Third Division matches," all based on "an exceptional situation and of extreme urgency absolutely necessary to protect the health of the footballers."
