Oviedo to Pursue Legal Actions After La Liga Clash at Rayo Vallecano Axed Over Pitch

Madrid – Real Oviedo have vowed to “study and pursue all appropriate legal actions” after their La Liga fixture at Rayo Vallecano was postponed barely four hours before kick-off on Saturday, with the league ruling that the Vallecas pitch “did not meet the necessary guarantees to secure the player’s safety.”

The match, scheduled for a 2 p.m. local start, was officially scrapped at 10:14 a.m. following a week of mounting tension. Rayo’s first-team squad, backed by the coaching staff and Spain’s players’ union (AFE), published a statement on Friday denouncing the “clearly deficient” playing surface and a litany of wider infrastructure failings at the Madrid club, including intermittent hot-water outages and sub-standard cleaning.

La Liga acknowledged that Rayo Vallecano “made significant efforts this week” to relay the turf, but persistent rain and further downpours forecast left the new grass unable to achieve minimum safety standards. The league’s statement was reposted verbatim on Rayo’s official channels, offering no additional comment.

Oviedo, who had already completed the 235-mile journey from Asturias with players, staff and supporters in the capital, branded the timing of the decision “a clear detriment to our club, from a sporting, organisational, and financial perspective.”

Speaking to the club’s media, sporting director Roberto Suárez expressed solidarity with Rayo’s players but insisted the rules had been breached: “We sympathise with the Rayo players and coaching staff, but there are rules of the game here and they have been broken. It’s not normal that we have everything ready to play and it’s well known that the turf at Rayo’s stadium was only laid yesterday, so it’s impossible for it to be in good condition. We have to look for alternatives and clearly this happens to us small teams. We don’t all play with the same cards.”

Rayo’s squad had earlier warned that the first-team pitch had deteriorated “with each passing week,” forcing the team to train elsewhere for three months earlier in the campaign. “We believe that the playing field does not meet the minimum requirements to play a top-level match,” the players said, adding that repeated complaints to club president Raúl Martín Presa had yielded only unfulfilled promises.

Oviedo now face fixture congestion and additional travel costs, while La Liga must decide on a rearranged date. The Asturian club’s threat of litigation signals a potential precedent for how teams may respond when match-day cancellations leave them footing the bill.

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