Dispute may delay start of Spanish season

The Spanish footballers union could delays the start to the season, while French Football Federation sacks Andre Prevosto.

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The Spanish professional footballers' union is threatening to force a delay to the start of the new season if an agreement cannot be reached over a wage guarantee fund.

Luis Manuel Rubiales, the union president, is in dispute with the Liga de Futbol Profesional (LFP) over a fund to protect players' wages, in the event of their clubs being declared insolvent.

Rubiales has pinpointed next Monday as the date for a "minimum agreement" to be reached, and insisted in an interview with the Al Primer Toque programme on Radio Marca that the season cannot begin without consensus on this matter.

He said: "La Liga has to start when the problems are truly resolved with a will that we do not see from the LFP at the moment.

"We are very disappointed. We do not see how a league, that is growing in income by eight to 10 per cent each year, has a fund that has more restrictions on it than in earlier agreements, and that may not be approved."

Andre Prevosto, the deputy director general, parted company with the French Football Federation (FFF) yesterday.

"I no longer wished to continue working with Mr Prevosto so we have offered him a severance package that will allow him to leave immediately," said the FFF president, Noel Le Graet, at a news conference in Paris."The executive committee voted in favour of the sacking of Andre Prevosto by nine votes to one."

Prevosto was suspended for six days earlier this year as part of an inquiry into a controversial plan to introduce quotas for dual-nationality players in the French national team.

Prevosto kept recording of secret discussions to limit the number of black and Arab players in their national training programme to 30 per cent and these were later obtained by the influential website Mediapart, which brought the story to light.