This entity would like to inform the public of some changes which have taken place in the II Edition of the Junior Tournament of Athletic Club.
As you may remember, a change was introduced in this second edition of the tournament: an Open stage would be played in the Basque Country and the winner would qualify to play in the final that will take place next August.
The programme planning of this Open stage, carried out by the tournament organizers long in advance as was stated in our last press conference on March 7, has not had any setbacks in the provinces of Bizcay, Araba, Nafarroa and Lapurdi. There have been some last minute changes in Guipúzkoa though..
Firstly, the Antiguoko and the Lengokoak, who had contacted the organizers and expressed their interest in participating in the tournament, decided some weeks later they were not going to enter the competition. The first team just stated they were not registering, and the second one adduced “sport reasons”.
In the face of this situation, the tournament organizers and the rest of the participating clubs had agreed to develop the Open stage in Gipuzkoa in the following way:
-Urola, Urki, Eibar and Aloña Mendi, would play in the grounds of Urola in Zumarraga and the champion would play the inter- provinces final in Lezama.
-Kostkas, Mariño CD and Vasconia would play in the Matigozotegi grounds in Donostia.
The matches were programmed for next Thursday April 17.
Surprisingly, and since April 9, just one week before this stage of the tournament was about to start, the clubs which had already confirmed their participation in writing -all of them clubs associated to Real Sociedad of San Sebastián SAD- start to show their reserve to participate in this competition.
At the same time, the Federation from Guipúzcoa, their secretary as spokesperson, informs us on the phone that, they are not going to give us permission to play the tournament in one of the two grounds that had been programmed: Matigozotegi (Donostia). Some problems to play part of the tournament matches in Urola (Zumarraga) arise as well.
Due to this, our club is trying to find other dates, to offer the clubs that want to participate the possibility of playing the planned matches in our grounds in Lezama, although we perfectly understand the difficulties they are encountering.
Athletic Club wants to express publicly our concern for what has happened and at the same time reaffirm our intention of going on successfully with the second edition of this junior tournament.