athletic bilbao - online sports 

Wales' Basque date suffers delay

Fifa has let the Spanish FA rearrange Athletic Bilbao's home match with Barcelona on Saturday 20 May, double booking their Estadio San Mames home.

So the 40,000 sell-out Wales match will now go ahead at the stadium on Sunday, with the kick-off time confirmed as 1915 BST.

The FA of Wales worked closely with the Basque FA to try to minimise disruption for Welsh supporters.

With nothing riding on the Primera Liga match, the Basque FA had asked for Athletic to play on Friday 19 May to leave the San Mames free for the Saturday as planned.

Although that best-case scenario has not happened, the Sunday compromise is better than the last remaining option of playing the Basque XI v Wales match on the Tuesday.

More than 400 Welsh football fans are thought to have booked their travel arrangements already, so there is some chance that many will be able to make the match on Sunday with minimum fuss.

Wales are scheduled to fly out to Austria on Thursday morning to take on Trinidad & Tobago on 27 May in Graz.

The Spanish FA had originally wanted to rearrange its fixture list so that there would have been a full league programme on 20 May.

Thankfully Fifa at least prevented that outcome, as such a plan would have seen the Basque side stripped of its players.

The likes of Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Osasuna and Alaves - the top clubs in the Basque region - would have been forced to keep their players for La Liga duty.

World football's governing body wanted domestic leagues to finish on 14 May because of this year's World Cup.

But with Barcelona and Seville both involved in European finals, Fifa has allowed the Spanish FA some leeway.