Seville wants tie moved because of Easter procession

Seville town council have asked for the first leg of the UEFA Cup quarter-final between holders Sevilla and Tottenham Hotspur to be changed from April 5 because it clashes with one of the city's celebrated religious processions. "It is not just because...

Seville town council have asked for the first leg of the UEFA Cup quarter-final between holders Sevilla and Tottenham Hotspur to be changed from April 5 because it clashes with one of the city's celebrated religious processions.

"It is not just because of the number of people involved in terms of security, but also out of respect for what the procession means for so many people," council spokesman Alfonso Rodriguez Gomez de Celis told a news conference yesterday.

"Any day in Holy Week is difficult but the most difficult is this one," he added.

"Ideally the game would not take place in Holy Week at all but we know that will be hard to achieve."

April 5, the Thursday before Easter, is a religious holiday in Spain with Seville staging some of the most famous and popular processions.

Thousands of people flock to Seville to witness the processions in which religious brotherhoods carry elaborate "pasos" (floats) around the city centre.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.