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Beach football ban amid health and safety fears

Health and safety worries have pushed one mayor in Spain's northwestern region of Galicia to ban football on his town's beaches.

Published: 11 August 2015 16:10 CEST

Beach football ban amid health and safety fears

Sports fans will need special permission to play football on the beach in summer. Photo: Henri Bergius/Flickr

Ángel García Seoane has emphasized the benefits of his plan to regulate sporting activities on the beaches of Oleiros, northwestern Spain, which could see the country's national sport banished from the sands.

The new measures mean that people planning to play sport on the beach will have to ask permission from the town council.

“A few days ago someone was killed in the canary islands after someone hit them over the head with a board” he told regional newspaper La Voz de Galicia.

“I love sport and I love nothing more than seeing people surfing and playing football on the beach in the winter.”

It is playing football in the summer that the mayor takes issue with.

“In summer we must take into account the people who come to enjoy the beach and not play football at high tide.

“The only thing I request is that people are responsible,” he added.

Seoane also pointed out that he would bear responsibility for any accidents that did occur on the beach:

“I am by law ultimately responsible for Civil Protection and if something happens on Bastiagueiro or Santa Cristina then the person who will appear in court is me.”

Beachgoers, however, have yet to be convinced with many telling La Voz de Galicia that the new measures were “unnecessary”.

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Which Spanish regions are likely to allow people to remove masks outdoors?

Photo: ANDER GILLENEA / AFP

Spain’s Health Emergencies chief Fernando Simón said at a recent press conference that he is hopeful about relaxing the rule about the use of masks in outdoor spaces, as long as the safety distance of 1.5 meters can be guaranteed.

“It is very possible that in a few days the use of a mask outdoors can be reduced. Of course, always guaranteeing that the risks are decreasing,” he said.

However, Simón also added that “reducing one measure does not mean that the same should be done with all measures”. In addition, he asked citizens to go “step by step and be careful until we see the effects that mean we can relax the restrictions”.

Although this will be decided in the next few days Simón does not want anyone to “fall into false assurances”.

Face masks have been compulsory in public in Spain since May 21st 2020, and since March of this year, you are required to wear them in almost all indoor and outdoor settings, even if you’re sticking to the safety distance, unless the activity is incompatible with mask-wearing such as eating, drinking, sunbathing, running etc.

Regions that could possibly relax restrictions on the use of masks outdoors

If the mask restrictions are relaxed by the government and the health authorities, the regions that could already qualify because of their low-to-medium risk epidemiological situations include Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castilla y León, Castilla La-Mancha, Extremadura, the Valencian region, Murcia, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands.

Which regions are in favour of the move?

Both Catalonia and Galicia have said that they would be in favour of dropping the use of masks outdoors.

The Catalan government was one of the first regions to open the discussion on relaxing the use of masks outdoors.

According to Catalan Regional Health Secretary MarcRamentol, the Catalan government considers that with at least 30 percent of the population fully vaccinated and more than half of the population having received at least one dose, the matter is worth discussing.

Not having to wear a mask outdoors will help the summer “feel more like 2019 than that of 2020”, said Ramentol.

President of the Xunta of Galicia Alberto Núñez Feijoo, said last week that he expects the use of masks outdoors will be abolished in July, however on Tuesday, May 18th at the Hotusa Group Tourism Innovation Forum in Madrid, he insisted that it is only “a matter of weeks”.

Although Valencia currently still has some strict rules in place, Regional President Ximo Puig has stated that he is in favour of the mask not being compulsory in open spaces. “We know that in open spaces there is a much lower possibility of contagion and I have been supporting this for a long time – it is not necessary to use the mask in some open spaces, natural spaces or on the beaches,” he said.

Which regions want to keep making masks compulsory in outdoor spaces

Regional authorities in Madrid and the Basque Country, the regions which the highest infection rates in Spain have criticised the national government’s position regarding masks, arguing that’s it’s too soon for masks to no longer be obligatory outdoors.

Andalusia is also against the proposal. Jesús Aguirre, Minister of Health and Families in Adalusia, has said that it would be a mistake since the mask is “the most powerful weapon” with which we have to avoid possible infections within the region.

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