World News
Spain Unfazed By FIFA Axe Threat
The Spanish government are confident their national team will not be excluded from Euro 2008 despite FIFA's unhappiness over a law that requires the Spanish football federation (RFEF) to hold early elections.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Monday threatened Spain with expulsion from the summer tournament unless the government revokes a new ministerial order that requires the country's non-Olympic sporting federations to hold elections before the Beijing Games.Blatter said: "It would only take six hours to call a FIFA emergency committee meeting to hear and decide upon Spain's exclusion [from Euro 2008]".
FIFA have always maintained a strong stance against government involvement in football's governing bodies, and have intervened in recent years in similar cases in Portugal and Greece.
But Spain's sports minister Jaime Lissavetzky does not believe FIFA intervention is necessary in the case.
He told AS: "Spain will play in Euro 2008 as it won the right to do so on the pitch. I'm sure of that.
"FIFA's rules regarding elections are 100% compatible with Spanish law and with its electoral processes.
"The truth is I don't see anything to the contrary, and if there is something they (FIFA) need to tell me."
Any ban would not just affect the national team, but also Spanish club sides involved in the UEFA Cup and Champions League.
But Lissavetzky believes neither the government nor the RFEF have done nothing to warrant FIFA intervention.
"I have no interest in harming Spanish sport, my job is exactly the opposite of that," he said. "Neither do I want confrontation with FIFA.
"One of the articles of the RFEF statute, the fourth if I remember rightly, states that the RFEF is governed by the rules set by FIFA and UEFA, and always within the boundaries of Spanish law.
"Next to the all-powerful president of FIFA I'm merely a modest secretary of state, but I know that in Spain we govern the Spanish people."
When asked what he would do if the RFEF do not hold elections before March 31 as the government is insisting, he said: "Carry out my obligation and my job, which is to apply the law."
Copyright (c) 2008 Press Association
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