The game is scheduled for this day because it cannot be played on Saturday or Sunday due to safety considerations.
In Seville, life moves with intense rhythm, especially around football and Holy Week. This is why it drew attention that Seville would host Celta on a date tied to the city’s calendar, such as Good Friday.
Why is Sevilla vs. Celta Vigo played on Good Friday? La Liga 2022-2023
Playing a match in Seville on Good Friday is unusual. The capital of Andalusia is usually quiet during Holy Week, one of the world’s most famous celebrations, which traditionally shifts festival events to Holy Saturday or Easter Sunday when streets calm down around noon.
In 2023, however, extraordinary circumstances required Sevilla to host Celta on matchday 28 of La Liga on Good Friday, a central day in Seville’s festival timetable when as many as seven brotherhoods organize afternoon processions.
The government delegation in Seville asked that the Sevilla match be held in La Liga on this Friday, April 7. The reasons include Betis also having a home game that weekend and the Easter Sunday evening kickoff for Betis, which would demand heightened security due to a large influx of Cadiz supporters.
Both games could not take place on the same day for security reasons, as there is a special security operation for a bullfighting festival on Easter Sunday afternoon.
Holy Saturday would have been the ideal slot to stage the match since the penultimate day of Holy Week is typically the quietest, with fewer brotherhoods in the streets.
Nevertheless, 2023 featured a Holy Great Burial, a special procession not held for 19 years, drawing 19 brotherhoods into the afternoon schedule. The city was expected to see a surge in tourism, which required police resources to focus on managing this event, making it impractical to combine Sevilla – Celta, so Good Friday was chosen instead. It was also not feasible to move the game to Monday, given the potential for Sevilla or Betis to play Europa League quarter-finals the following Thursday.
Note: this account reflects the scheduling decisions surrounding the match in that season.