Lhe Basque Football Federation maintains its intention to continue with its interest in becoming official. Javier Landeta, president of the EFF-FVF, has appeared this Wednesday in the Basque Parliament to insist that “we will continue working for this objective, which is none other than taking firm steps towards making the Basque national teams official, based on collaboration and consensus”.
Javier Landeta beat ex-soccer player Koikili Lertxundi in the elections for the presidency of the EFF-FVF held in March 2021. Achieving official status for the Basque national teams is one of their long-term goals and resuming the friendlies of the national teams is a closer challenge. For the first, the president requests the collaboration of governors and parliamentarians since “The task is difficult and exceeds my functions and competences”. UEFA and FIFA have already denied the official status of Euskadi and now “you are the ones who have to take steps that favor that objective and, if you achieve it and obtain favorable socio-political conditions, we can resubmit both applications.”
And consider that the political path is essential since in the current circumstance there is no option: the Basque would need the consent of the Spanish to deal with a request that UEFA would only accept if the territory is accepted by a large number of countries. FIFA, for its part, only accepts federations already previously recognized by UEFA, CONMEBOL, AFC, CAF, CONCACAF and OFC.
The Euskadi team has not played a game during Landeta’s term. The federations were close to closing a friendly last Christmas and then tried another agreement for the FIFA window in March. There was no green light and there is now silence on whether to work on a deal by June. The last time the selection of Euskadi played a friendly match in 2020 against Costa Rica in Ipurua.
