Iru cannot play the Cup with Athletic by contract

Athletic face the first leg of the Cup semifinal against Osasuna with their fifth goalkeeper in the squad. Agirrezabala, Unai Simón’s replacement in Liga, and Ispizua, currently a starter at Bilbao Athletic, are Valverde’s goalkeepers at El Sadar

That Simón was injured against Girona was already known before the trip to Iruñea; that Padilla, the theoretical starting goal of the subsidiary, lost his position after the injury suffered months ago, no less; and Ispizua has been playing for several weeks at Bilbao Athletic. What no one can explain is why Ander Iru, theoretically the third goalkeeper of the first team, was not called up, and instead the fifth in Lezama’s ranks came.

The forced removal of Unai Simón served, incidentally, to expose something that has been overlooked until now. Iru is licensed from the subsidiary, although he is a first-team goalkeeper for all purposes other than contractual level. It wouldn’t hurt to know what AFE thinks about it.

The Cup, not professional

The current federative regulation considers that “if the lineup of football players of the subsidiaries is in the team of a sponsor, they must be under 23 years old with the exception provided for section C of this article”. And what does section C of that article 250 say, because “in the case of football players with the status of goalkeepers and only in professional competitions, they can line up in the first team of the sponsor if they are under 25 years of age regardless of their license whether professional or non-professional.

The reasons why Iru cannot play in the Cup are, therefore, that he is over 23 years old, that this tournament was conceived as a non-professional competition (the League is professional) and that Athletic maintains a subsidiary record His third goalkeeper despite the fact that for all intents and purposes he is one of the first team. Lezama’s new ‘gure estiloa’. It’s embarrassing.