Can a Sporting de Gijón fan influence the appointment of a schedule? The answer is a yes with many nuances. The visit to the Sanse brings back to the present a fundamental problem such as the clash between the calendars and the interest of the fan. For a day in which a massive displacement to Anoeta was expected, the fact of setting the meeting on Monday has caused the Mareona to be reduced to a hundred people. LaLiga contemplates requests to adapt the schedules at least three months in advance. There are concessions, but the final decision of the management is marked by television, the economic engine of the competition.
Five supporters clubs will be represented in San Sebastian to support Sporting: You Will Never Walk Alone, La 1905, Castrillón-Sergio Álvarez, Desastre and León Rojiblanco. “At the beginning we were about 35, but since the schedule was known… Now we will travel 16”, he comments Herminio Martin, president of the Peña You Will Never Walk Alone. Along the way they have changed hotel reservations and gone from canceling a coach to hiring a minibus. Something similar has happened to La 1905. “In the end, four of us went by car, but the idea was to get people together for a coach. So, impossible. In the first round it was already played here on Friday. It is not normal that a game like this now falls on Monday, “he says Robert Narvaezwho this season has been on all the team’s trips, except for Heliodoro and Montilivi “because there were no tickets for visitors due to covid-19.”
“We are totally against these schedules because that income from television and the CVC is also us, the fans, involved in generating it. We are football consumers”, he says. George Warrior, president of the Federation of Peñas Sportinguistas. “These schedules annoy those who want to travel and the local fan. In the future sale of television rights, it must be considered in order to put an end to it”, he adds. Adrian Nunezpresident of the Union of Peñas Sportinguistas, Unipes.
While Unipes points out that before the pandemic, meetings were held with Sporting at the start of the season to schedule dates on the calendar in which the club would mediate with LaLiga to adapt schedules, it admits that now they have stopped celebrating. Among other reasons, because “the health recommendation is still not to travel.” At Sporting they also point to the time when the calendar is known as the main one to listen to requests and try to unite the interests of the fan and LaLiga. In the Federation of Peñas Sportinguistas there is talk of more routes.
“We do have the capacity to try to change a schedule and this has happened. In cases of massive travel and giving notice at least three months in advance, together with Aficiones Unidas and Sporting itself, we have proposed alternatives to LaLiga. If you want changes, you have to follow that path”, assures Jorge Guerrero. Luis Gil He is the strong man of LaLiga to favor that contact that, for the moment, has not satisfied everyone. “There is interest in improving all of that and we are working on implementing new initiatives,” he says. Among them, he discovers the so-called “sports tourism” day.
This initiative contemplates special promotions for massive displacements that include a closed hotel price of about 50 euros within a pack completed with guided visits in addition to the football match. The rojiblanca fans will benefit from this once a season, in the same way that visiting supporters can do it in Gijón. “The pandemic has delayed everything, but we have already started conversations with the City Council and with Otea,” explains Jorge Guerrero.
Pedro Diaz, award. The trip to Anoeta will have an added reason for the Peña You Will Never Walk Alone. There they will present Pedro Díaz with the fifth edition of the trophy with which they annually distinguish the player who has given the most assists. The act, in principle, will take place in the concentration hotel of the Gijon team in San Sebastian.
