Rayo Vallecano match abandoned as fan protest forces Athletic Club to wait again

Rayo Vallecano’s La Liga home fixture against Athletic Club was abandoned on Sunday, October 12, after supporters at Vallecas repeatedly threw paper planes and small balls onto the pitch in organised protests against club president Raúl Martín Presa, with referee José María Sánchez Martínez ultimately ordering both teams off for good. LaLiga confirmed the match would not be replayed later that day, and Athletic’s delegation returned to Bilbao without a new date confirmed.

The disruption began as early as the 13th minute, when supporters behind the goal occupied by Athletic goalkeeper Unai Simón started launching objects onto the field. Mundo Deportivo reported that messages printed on the paper planes indicated the protest had been planned in advance, and that chants and banners directed at Presa had greeted the teams before kick-off.

Sánchez Martínez halted play and allowed the match to resume after a brief delay, but objects were thrown again, sending the players to the dressing rooms and triggering the official match protocol. When the launches recurred a third time after play restarted, the referee issued the definitive suspension.

The protest was not a spontaneous outburst. Mundo Deportivo noted that opposition to Presa had built over several years, and that just a week earlier, during a friendly against Cagliari, there had been graffiti at the ground and an attempt to enter the directors’ box.

For Athletic, the abandonment compounds an already unsettled start to the season. Three of their first eight league fixtures had already been moved before Sunday’s events. Their match at Levante was postponed due to heavy rain and a waterlogged pitch, and was rescheduled for October 21. The Vallecas fixture had no replacement date in Mundo Deportivo’s report at the time of publication.

The first realistic window in Athletic’s calendar was identified as the week beginning November 2, with November 4 or 5 floated as possibilities rather than confirmed dates. The club’s next scheduled fixture was a visit to Valencia on Saturday, October 17, for the ninth round of La Liga. Mundo Deportivo noted that Athletic had last played a competitive match on September 19, meaning the extended gap between league appearances would stretch further still while the abandoned fixture remained unresolved.