The Spanish
Sports Council on Tuesday overruled the country’s Football Federation and
accepted La Liga’s request to postpone a pair of weekend matches involving
teams with players on international duty with South American nations.

The Barcelona–Sevilla
and Villarreal-Alavés games stand postponed and will be played on a later date.
Both these games were originally scheduled to be played on Saturday.

The Spanish
football federation had not accepted the league’s request for the same but
Spain’s top sports authority decided to grant the request. The ruling came in
the form of a preventive measure that can still be appealed by the federation,
which reiterated its disapproval.

The
federation said in a statement that it will create “a dangerous precedent
for international sports” as it would be the “first time that a
domestic league suspended matches because players were called up by their
national teams,” the Associated Press reported.

The
statement added that the council’s decision was “totally illegal” and
that both FIFA and UEFA supported the federation’s stance. The Spanish league
later said it was not aware of the stance of either FIFA or UEFA on the matter.

Like most
of its European counterparts, the Spanish league had also tried to block
players from going to South America’s triple-header of World Cup qualifiers
because players would return too close to the resumption of matches in Spain.
But the players went ahead to represent their countries after Court of
Arbitration for Sport allowed them to do so.

FIFA
extended the international window to allow South American teams to play a third
World Cup qualifier less than two days before domestic leagues were due to
resume in Europe.

The Spanish
league had already rescheduled some matches from Saturday to Sunday to give
players more time to rest, including Real Madrid’s home game against Celta Vigo,
which will mark Madrid’s return to the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

Madrid had
been playing at its training center as the Bernabéu underwent renovation during
the coronavirus pandemic. The Bernabéu will remain under renovation but it will
be reopened with a limited number of fans allowed back in the stands.

The games
between Sevilla and Barcelona and Villarreal and Alavés could not be moved to
Sunday because Barcelona and Villarreal begin their campaigns in the Champions
League on Tuesday. Barcelona hosts Bayern Munich in Group E, while Villarreal
hosts Atalanta in Group F.