Barcelona cleared after player eligibility query

Barcelona will remain in the Copa del Rey after the Spanish football federation (RFEF) confirmed it had rejected Levante’s complaint against the Catalan side for fielding an ineligible player in last week’s last-16, first-leg game.

A statement from the federation said head of the competition Carmen Perez had rejected Levante’s complaint against Barca for fielding defender Juan ‘Chumi’ Brandariz in the game when he was supposed to be serving a suspension because it arrived after the 48-hour deadline.

Barca, who have won the last four editions of the Copa del Rey and have lifted the trophy a record 30 times, won Thursday’s second leg 3-0 at the Nou Camp for a 4-2 aggregate win, and will take their place in the quarter-final draw later on Friday.

On Thursday Barca boss Ernesto Valverde had insisted that the 19-year-old was eligible and was instead banned for the La Liga game against Eibar.

In quotes reported by Marca, Valverde said after the second-leg win: “We have no doubt about Chumi, neither before, nor after, nor during, we think that we should be in the draw tomorrow.

“We are sure that we did it well, we knew perfectly well that Chumi was sanctioned and that he could not use the match against Eibar, but in the cup. We could not use [Rafa] Mujica either.

“We are convinced of what we have done, we have acted in an absolutely correct way, we have won where we had to win, it is very clear.”

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