24 Dec 2008England-Spain clash moved to Seville

Football Leagues/ Association and Governance

England's friendly clash with Spain next year has been moved to the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium, the home of Andalucian side Sevilla, it was confirmed yesterday (December 23rd).

Fabio Capello's men - who recently rose to eighth in the Fifa rankings - were due to take on the European champions at Real Madrid's Bernabeu on Wednesday, February 11th.

However, the Football Association (FA) has decided that the venue is not appropriate to host the fixture after a number of England players were the target of racist abuse there in 2004.

Their Spanish counterparts were fined £45,000 over the incident, but with striker Emile Heskey being on the receiving end of monkey chants during a World Cup qualifier in Zagreb in September, the FA were determined to take a strong stance.

They resolved to honour the friendly only if it was moved from the Bernabeu - where Spain normally play their home matches - to the 45,500-seat Sanchez Pizjuan.

England current sit atop their World Cup qualifying group with a perfect record of four wins out of four.

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