Isolated incidents in Spanish football affect all clubs

Isolated incidents in Spanish football, such as the serious confrontation last season between the Frente Atlético and Riazor Blues resulting in a fatality, have ended up harming all clubs. The Professional Football League (LFP) and the Higher Sports Council (CSD) approved a regulation last March which comes into effect this season, 2015-16, and will directly affect the two fan groups of Espanyol: the "Curva" and the "Juvenil".

"The innocent are paying for the guilty, as our fan groups are not at all violent, but rather the envy of other clubs," says Ramon Robert, the director of management control at Espanyol and executive director of the Punt d'Atenció al Soci, with whom AS spoke yesterday. "But we can't do anything about it, it's a rule and we have no choice but to apply it to the 42 clubs in the LFP," he adds. The measures are drastic, as all members who have their seat in one of those two zones, the "Curva" or the "Juvenil," will only enter Cornellà-El Prat stadium by using their fingerprint. And once inside the stadium, these sectors will be separated from the rest by acrylic barriers.

Espanyol has been discussing with both fan groups for weeks and have held at least four informative meetings, and yesterday they sent an email to all subscribers of those sectors and the neighboring ones. The aim is to try to minimize the unavoidable inconveniences. Robert specifies that "we will try to place an acrylic barrier that does not impair visibility and with a height that, although it will not allow jumping from one side to the other, will allow the chants to be heard throughout the stadium. If Curva and Juvenil win, all fans win and so does the game being played."

As a club, Espanyol is also affected by this regulation, as they will have to bear all the costs of the reforms, which will amount to around 100,000 euros. "We would be the first interested in these measures not existing," says Robert, aware that this is an enormous extraordinary expense for the entity in these times. "Furthermore, we were the pioneers in fighting against ultras groups, we don't have them here," he recalls.

In October.

Although the regulation will come into effect on the first day of the league, the club has requested an extension from the LFP to adapt the facilities, which has been granted. Therefore, it is estimated that the system will become irrevocably operational by the end of October.

In the coming weeks, members of the "Curva" and "Juvenil" will have to go to the stadium to have their fingerprints recorded in the database in order to continue enjoying football.