Two weeks until the sporting decision that is keeping the Spanish far right up at night

BarcelonaThe Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will decide on Friday, December 19, whether it has jurisdiction to arbitrate the appeal filed by the Spanish Pelota Federation against the International Federation and the Basque Federation, alleging "formal irregularities" in the assembly that accepted the Basque Country as a full member. On September 11, the Lausanne-based body held a virtual hearing lasting more than five hours with all parties involved. The three judges appointed to the case, from Belgium, Paraguay, and Spain, gathered all the relevant information. The decision is causing concern among the Spanish right and far right, who have been uneasy for months. "The Basque Country is as Spanish as Murcia, Andalusia, or Ceuta," says Jacobo Robatto, a Vox deputy. "The fact that regional teams can play international matches is political and economic corruption," declares Vicente Azpitarte, a PP senator. "The government is negotiating with the sports law, authorizing regional teams to compete outside of or alongside the Spanish national team," warns Cuca Gamarra, a PP deputy.

"I'm trying to understand the situation, but I don't know what will happen. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will decide what it has to decide. What we can say is that Spain hasn't broken apart. Basque pelota, which I know is played in other places, has an origin, a history, and a country that loves itself and views it favorably," recalls José Bueno. (CSD).

The Basque Country team, with four gold and four silver medals, topped the medal table at the first 36-Meter Basque Pelota Nations League, held a few days ago at the Vizcaya fronton in Bilbao. The competition allowed Basque players to compete against the Spanish national team. France, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, the United States, Portugal, Bolivia, and Chile also competed in the championship.

Catalan political parties welcome the step forward taken by Basque football and criticize the legal obstacles that the PP and Vox parties are trying to create. "They have a monolithic, homogenizing, pre-constitutional, and pre-constitutional vision that seeks to impose a unitary conception of the State and prohibit pluralism, even in sports. In Catalonia, whether they like it or not, we have a very long tradition of our own sporting structure predating the current autonomous framework," says Francesc Ten (Junts). "The proposed law is an ideological reform that aims to erase the Catalan and Basque reality from the international sporting map and to subordinate, subjugate, and silence the national teams, because they are terrified that any athlete could represent stateless nations on the Iberian Peninsula," adds Jordi Gaseni (ERC). "The government's partners have smelled blood and will destroy Spanish sport to further their own interests," shouts Borja Sémper, spokesperson for the PP. The entry of the Basque Pelota Federation of the Basque Country (FPVE) into the International Federation (FIPV), approved on December 28th during an assembly held in PamplonaThis set off alarm bells among Spanish nationalists, who launched a legal and media campaign to try to overturn the decision.

A historic assembly

On December 28, the FIPV General Assembly approved the admission of the Basque Federation with the support of more than two-thirds of the countries present. The Spanish Federation did not vote because its representative was not part of the interim management committee and, therefore, was not entitled to vote. The Spanish Federation was in the midst of an election process, and the president of its interim management committee, Julián García Angulo, was under disciplinary sanction for inappropriate comments on social media.