José María Sánchez Martínez applies objects protocol after incidents at Vallecas

José María Sánchez Martínez applied the RFEF protocol on objects thrown from the stands at Vallecas, where he had to temporarily stop the match against Athletic. Balls and paper planes were thrown in large numbers, particularly from the section where the home team’s radical supporters are located.

The referee’s intervention followed the RFEF protocol for this type of incident. It distinguishes between different situations. In the first case, when an object is not considered dangerous and has hit neither a player, a spectator, a photographer beside the pitch nor anyone else, the procedure calls for a warning over the public-address system.

At Vallecas, play was stopped for ten minutes. The length of the interruption indicates the stoppage caused by the objects, while the conditions set out for the protocol’s first case specify the response when nobody has been hit by an object deemed non-dangerous. The match against Athletic was therefore temporarily suspended as these rules were applied. The incident brought the RFEF protocol to the centre of José María Sánchez Martínez’s handling of the match.