Laliga’s Osasuna are considering filing an appeal against Barcelona for allegedly breaking FIFA rules over a player’s return after the international break.
Barcelona defender, Inigo Martinez has rediscovered his form this season under Hansi Flick and was rewarded with a call into the Spanish national team this month.
However, the veteran centre-back had to pull out of the duty with the National team due to a knee injury and replaced by Bournemouth’s Dean Huijsen in the squad. Nevertheless, the veteran defender was able to start in Barcelona’s 3-0 win in their rescheduled match against Osasuna on Thursday evening.
According to Spanish publication, Osasuna are considering filing an appeal against Barcelona for supposedly breaking FIFA’s rules regarding players featuring for their clubs having pulled out from international duty. Osasuna believe that Inigo Martinez supposed not have been eligible for their match on Thursday evening.
FIFA rules stated that, any players who withdraw from international duty cannot play for their respective clubs until after five days of the international break unless his participation had been officially cleared by the federation, in this case, the RFEF.
As the above rules stipulated, if RFEF faulted Martinez’s participation as ineligible, Hansi Flick and Barcelona could potentially be docked with points deduction especially from the win against Osasuna as the match may stand as a forfeit.
However, majority of the reports in Spain claim that Barcelona are not worried about the situation
