Sunday at six o’clock in the afternoon the White-and-Green pavilion should host the great derby of Girona handball between Bordils and Sarrià. Today, however, no one knows if the match will be played, or if there will be an audience (the little more than 100 spectators that the installation has a limited capacity) or how the teams will be prepared. At the moment, knowing how they will train is a mystery. Both Bordils and Sarrià are waiting to see if the training schedule can be extended until 10 pm or if, otherwise, they can reschedule the sessions for an hour and a half before (with the difficulty involved in to be able to have the whole staff because most players study or work). In Sarrià the players have agreed to train from seven, for example. The situation in handball is identical to that of other sports considered no professionals. Garatge Plana Girona, for example, will play against Barça next weekend but, at the moment, also due to schedule issues, they cannot train.
He clam to get to stretch one more hour and be able to lengthen the workouts until 10 p.m. was unanimous yesterday. And for this reason, the General Secretariat of Sport hastened to a written request to the Steering Committee of the Civil Protection Plan of Catalonia (Procicat) that equates the closure of sports facilities, fitness centers and gyms to that of cultural activities, ie at 10 pm. The Secretary General, Gerard figueras, see one “Comparative grievance” between the sports sector, that the resolution of the curfew forces it to close at 9 pm, i the culture, who can do so an hour later, and believes there are no “technical elements to support this discrimination.” Figueras defended that this request “is not a whim” but that they formulate it in the face of the “difficulty” of many entities to find availability in the facilities in the evening strip.
Figueras expressed this discomfort yesterday at the Procicat meeting. According to him, from the General Secretariat of Sport they already raised on Sunday the need to extend the closure of sports facilities until 10 pm but, in spite of the negotiations, they failed to get the resolution to provide for it in this way. The Secretary General of Sport has warned that the restriction of night mobility for sports activities until 9 pm it harms “thousands and thousands of entities that occupy the later strips of the day” in facilities, such as pavilions or football fields. He also defended that sports activities are “safe” and that facilities, federations and entities apply “very strict” protocols.
The head of the General Secretariat of Sport said that they had included in the petition not only all sports equipment, regardless of ownership, but also fitness centers and gyms, as, he argued, in the most cases are proximity centers and it does not take an hour to get home. Figueras expects a response from Procicat in the next few hours or days and was optimistic that the schedule could be extended to 22 hours. In any case, however, he made it clear that for now the facilities and sports centers must close at 9 pm and recommended that in the meantime the training sessions be “shorter”.
Aside from the curfew, on the ban on territorial and grassroots competitions – a measure that came into force on October 16 for 15 days – Figueras asked to be addressed in the coming days if the restriction can be to stand up for next weekend, as the federations advocate. The exception to these measures are professional athletes, as they have an employment relationship with their clubs or entities.
Grama-Figueres, tomorrow
Figueres could not play their league match against La Grama last weekend because on Friday they detected a covid-19 positive in the first team. Today they will test the squad, and if there are no more cases, tomorrow at 7 pm they will play the postponed match. So far the team has been isolated, untrained, awaiting today’s analysis.
Will there be grassroots sports?
The Generalitat banned territorial and grassroots competitions for a period of fifteen days that expires next Friday. The question that federations and clubs are asking is whether after this period of time, next weekend, they will be able to resume the tournaments, which they defend, but which does not seem very possible given that the restrictive measures are increasing. The shutdown affected, for example, in football, from Primera Catalana and grassroots sports. In the next few hours the Procicat also has the key to this.
Advancement of matches
The daily confinement decreed in Catalonia by the covid-19 with a curfew from 22.00 hours to 06.00 the next day has caused the Champions League match between Barça and the Danish Aalborg, scheduled for Thursday, day 29, at 20.45 hours advance to 18.45. It is also to see the schedule of the Cadí-Spar Girona Women’s League on Saturday, initially scheduled for 8 pm, but which could be advanced so as not to end on the verge of curfew.
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