Alaves beats Sevilla while fans protest Friday night games in Spain

MADRID — Alaves fans ramped up their protest against inconvenient night-time games in Spain when they boycotted the first few minutes of Friday's La Liga match against Sevilla.

One of the club’s biggest organised fan groups is angry at what it says are excessive Friday and Monday night games that make it hard for supporters to attend.

They called for fans to take their seats five minutes after kickoff so TV pictures would show empty stands and signs protesting the matches.

One enormous banner circulating on social media read: “Fans, Now or Never, No to Football During the Week.”

Alaves will play two of its first 10 Serie A games on a Friday night. Last season, it played 12 of its 34 league matches outside the more usual weekend spots, the highest in the league along with Granada, according to calculations in the Spanish press.

Football has traditionally been a sport played at weekends and midweek but more and more European leagues have added games on Friday and Monday nights to satisfy TV audiences and cope with increasing fixture congestion.

Absent fans did not miss much in the opening minutes but they were seated in time to see Carlos Vicente give Alaves the lead after a quarter of an hour.

Carlos Martin doubled the home side’s advantage on the hour mark and, although Dodi Lukebakio pulled one back for Sevilla seven minutes from time, the visitor never looked like preventing a comfortable 2-1 win for Alaves.

The Basque club was fifth in La Liga. Sevilla was 14th.