The strike is scheduled on the weekend where the footballers are due to play against Recreativo de Huelva.

18 April 2008

VALENCIA - The players of Levante, the city of Valencia's second-largest soccer team which is in last place in La Liga's first division, announced Thursday at a press conference that they will go on a 48-hour strike on the weekend of 26 – 27 April to demand unpaid salaries from the troubled club. Levante is scheduled to lock horns with Recreativo de Huelva on that weekend.

Luis Manuel Rubiales, a team captain, said that the decision to go on strike was unanimous among his teammates.

A letter signed by the players and handed to the media justified the strike on the following grounds: "We want to make it perfectly clear that it is the club that is not fulfilling its side of the bargain as well as the municipality of

Valencia, which has the means and which promised everyone that the players would get paid before 30 June.

“We have worked honourably for a long time and fought as hard as any team, and we have arrived at this unanimous decision - if we do not get paid before the game against Huelva, we will have no other choice but to go on strike during that weekend."

Rubiales said, however, that the team would continue practicing even if the players do not arrive at a solution with the club's board.

"We will carry out [the strike] fully aware of the consequences," an unnamed Levante player told the media. "We know that our actions will hurt people, but we are the ones that are at the short end of the stick."

The money owed to the Levante players includes their Christmas bonus, last month's salary and various other fees from the previous season.

[El Pais / Expatica]