The battle between Mexico and Mallorca for Giovani dos Santos has now seen the Liga club reported to FIFA.
Friday is a FIFA deadline for clubs to release players to their national federations for scheduled international games.
However, Mallorca have reportedly made moves to indicate that they will not release Giovani until after he has played in the club’s final League game of the season.
The island outfit need to win and see other results go their way to have any chance of beating relegation in Week 38.
However, Mexico’s federation are unsympathetic, with a World Cup qualifier against Jamaica on June 4, and have now turned to FIFA to ask that they intervene in the dispute and see that the 24-year-old is released by tomorrow.
“We have sent the call out in a timely manner, since May 17. Their position is that they are not clear that June 4 is a qualifying date,” Mexico Football Federation’s director Hector Gonzalez explained in a statement released this week.
“When playing a qualifying match, you have the right to four days if the player is on the same continent, or five days if coming from another continent. In this case it is five days that we are entitled to from Friday.
“It seems that FIFA will intervene by phone and direct another letter telling them that it will be a breach of rules to not release the player.
“Here are [Valencia’s Andres] Guardado and [Villarreal’s Javier] Aquino, who are also playing for important things for their clubs. I understand the position of Mallorca, they are playing for everything this weekend, I understand the pressure they are under, but we’re not going to accept defeat and hopefully this is resolved by Thursday and Gio comes here at the worst on Friday, the last day the club can send him over.
“Valencia and Villarreal have agreed, understanding that at a sporting level it will also greatly help the player to have them leave Spain a little earlier for the jet lag, climate, rhythm. Gio will arrive on Friday and have four days to recover.
“The fight for Gio is respectable and understandable, but in the end they have to understand that there is a regulation and it must be respected.
“The regulations are clear, if Gio plays and they win or draw, points will be deducted and there will be other strong economic sanctions, but the worst thing is that points will be deducted.”
