Barcelona, Osasuna appeals over rearranged match date rejected

Barcelona and Osasuna’s appeals against the rescheduled date of their postponed La Liga match were rejected Thursday by the Spanish Football Federation’s appeals committee.

The La Liga leaders will host Osasuna on March 27 after the game was cancelled when a Barcelona club doctor died on the original date, March 8.

Barcelona appealed against the new date because it allowed some of their players “insufficient time to rest” following international duty.

Precedent… establishes that national team call-ups are not sufficient grounds for rescheduling a match… when the team affected has enough players to play the match,” said the federation’s appeals committee.

Winger Raphinha is part of Brazil’s squad for a World Cup qualifier at Argentina set to kick off at 0000 GMT on March 26, while defender Ronald Araujo travels with Uruguay to visit Bolivia on March 25 at 2000 GMT.

Osasuna also appealed against the new date because they would be left with less than 72 hours of rest before their next match, which was scheduled for March 28 at Athletic Bilbao.

The committee said the Bilbao match would be moved to March 30 to allow Osasuna recovery time.