Court of Appeal rejects Benidorm's appeal

The EHF Court of Appeal has decided to reject the appeal of the Spanish club, BM Benidorm.

The second leg game of the EHF European League 2020/21 qualification round 2 between BM Benidorm and the Austrian club, Fivers was scheduled for 29 September 2020 in Vienna, Austria.

However the Spanish team could not attend the match because of their quarantine obligation due to the fact that six Covid-19 infected players were identified at the club.

As a consequence of this situation the EHF administrative body decided that the club is no longer an active participant of the competition because they could not participate at the scheduled time and the opponent team had been declared as qualifying team for the next phase of the competition, which is the group phase.

The Spanish club lodged an appeal against the decision arguing that they could not breach the quarantine obligation therefore it was impossible for them to attend the match.

The EHF Court of Appeal rejected the appeal and upheld the decision of the EHF administrative body on the basis that the EHF needs to safeguard the integrity of the sport and to keep the proper continuation of the competition under exceptional circumstances.

An appeal may be filed within 21 days with the EHF Court of Arbitration but shall not have any suspensive effect.