Barcelona's upcoming meeting with Sevilla has been postponed because of a clash in schedule with the South American international fixtures.
La Liga had initially been rejected by the Spanish FA (RFEF) in their attempts to have the fixture postponed and took their appeal to the National Sports Council (CSD), arguing that both sides would be missing too many players because of delays getting back from South America.
The CSD have now confirmed that they agree with La Liga's case and have postponed Saturday's fixture, as well as Villarreal vs Alaves for the same reason.
They have ruled against the RFEF, who did not believe the absence of the South Americans was severe enough to postpone the fixture, agreeing with La Liga's stance that the integrity of the game would be at risk by forcing the four teams to play without their internationals.
However, they have given the RFEF time to fight their case and appeal the ruling.
The absence of South Americans isn't actually that problematic for Barcelona now that Lionel Messi is gone. Ronald Araujo is away with Uruguay but that's it for Ronald Koeman's men, whereas Sevilla would be at a huge disadvantage.
Gonzalo Montiel, Papu Gomez and Marcos Acuna are all away with Argentina and would likely miss the game, which would weaken Sevilla and, in La Liga's eyes, hand Barcelona an unfair advantage against them.
With these fixtures now postponed, both Barcelona and Villarreal will have an extra day of rest as they prepare to kick off their Champions League group stage campaigns during the week.
There is no word as to when they will be rescheduled, with La Liga and the RFEF now looking at vacant dates later in the season.
This article was originally published on 90min as Barcelona vs Sevilla postponed due to CONMEBOL schedule clash.
Source: www.90min.com