MADRID. Item three concerns the Royal Spanish Football Federation, which has announced it will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against a sanction imposed by FIFA, the governing body of the species' principal ball game. The sanction concerns the behaviour of Spain's supporters during a friendly against Egypt. The behaviour consisted of Islamophobic chants. The appeal concerns the invoice for the chants. The filing runs to forty-one pages; the chants appear on none of them.
Finding 1, Responsiveness. The federation contests the number with a vigour the desk has not previously observed in this species' handling of its own conduct. 'No one disputes that the songs were sung,' said Ángel Ruiz Cañete, the federation's Deputy Undersecretary for Acoustic Heritage. 'We dispute that songs have consequences. The appeal corrects the invoice. The choir was never on the agenda.'
Finding 2, Materiality. The sanction is monetary, payable from accounts held at an institution licensed to store numbers. Money remains the only substance this species reliably converts into attention. 'FIFA has assigned a figure to an evening of singing,' said Pilar Sanchís, the federation's Director of Supporter Climate. 'Our position is that the figure is wrong. The singing we accept as given, like weather.'
The chants themselves have been placed on a waiting list — the queue of the queue — behind an arbitration that will conclude after the next incident, which is scheduled after the current one. The chants have retained counsel. The federation's kits, garments under planned aesthetic obsolescence, are redesigned annually without litigation; the chants are a durable line. The federation's president, the dominant primate of its corporate troop, was not required to sing and has not been fined for it, a distinction the desk finds instructive.
Remediation plan: one review of supporter vocabulary, to commence within ninety days of the appeal's conclusion, unless the appeal succeeds, in which case the review will be rescheduled to follow the next sanction — currently unscheduled, currently inevitable. Recurrence risk: certain. The desk grades the litigation Excellent, the introspection Not Yet Commenced, and observes that the species continues to meet its standards wherever an invoice is involved.
Decision of the desk: the appeal will be covered in full; the chants will be covered at the next fine; the next fine will be appealed. Coverage of the conduct will continue until the conduct improves. The choir has been notified of nothing.
