Cesar Noval Font is a plastic surgeon and at the same time an assistant referee in the Spanish First Division. He gained notoriety in 2018 when, during the same week, he carried out a pioneering sex reassignment
operation that lasted 17 hours and served as assistant referee in Eibar’s thrashing of Real Madrid (3-0). “I was barely 30 seconds on the news because of the surgery we had done and the next day they gave me 10 minutes as referee. Football overstates everything”, he told El Pais before explaining his resignation from rejoining LaLiga for the remainder of the 2019-2020 season. In times of pandemic, prudence advises avoiding the simultaneity of functions.
Noval, 33, a native of Lleida but a Valencian by adoption since he was two years old, had prepared himself conscientiously to join the return of the competition in the team of referee Martinez Munuera, but has finally decided to put football before health. “I was aware that it could happen. I renounce to referee for an exercise of responsibility and for a double reason: on the one hand, to preserve the health of my teammates and that of all the components of football that will resume their activity this week. And, on the other hand, fundamentally preserve the health of my patients, to whom I owe myself”, he points out. “During the last months and until this weekend I have completed all the formations of the Technical Committee of Referees and have passed all the physical and medical tests”, continues Noval, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the University of Valencia with an Extraordinary Prize. “I am in an optimal state and that is why the decision is harder. We have worked very hard to keep in shape despite being confined. But, being a doctor, you are very aware of reality, more than the general population”, he reviews. “When I do a rhinoplasty, for example, the ultrasound generates a flow of water so that the bone in the nose does not heat up. That flow is embedded in the gown and the level of exposure is very high. If I do a test 48 hours before a game, but I cannot spend that time without performing surgical activity, due to the current situation, I have to assume that I cannot referee”, he says.
At this time, in his hospital they required his availability as a general surgeon due to the high volume of contagion that the health workers were suffering, while maintaining the activity of plastic surgery, which was still accumulating delay. “In our private clinic we have a waiting list of around six months. In recent weeks we have enabled operating rooms morning and afternoon, Saturdays and Sundays included“, says Noval. Nasal and breast reconstructions take precedence over cosmetic enhancements in an effort to make up for the time lost by the health crisis. “We have to be very cautious. We have already seen that a pandemic can exceed any forecast. The level of society’s commitment to the medical community has allowed us to achieve a fairly high level of control”, he points out. An analysis that Noval also directs to football. “I think there will be no problem. But evolution must be followed with caution”, explains the surgeon, who describes the LaLiga restart protocol as “correct and complete”. “It is about taking the maximum precautions. There will be things that will prove unnecessary and others that will have to be incorporated but it is adequate”. Noval analyzes the paradoxes of the new football, with players wearing a mask and distanced on the bench, while others struggling, as “an exercise in social responsibility.” “What is transferred from the soccer field is a message of caution. Physical contact during the game is inevitable, but at other times it is avoidable. So let’s do it”, he says before making a wish. “The day when there will be public in the stadiums I will also be closer to return, because everything will be more controlled. But it is better to talk about criteria than dates so as not to get stressed as I walk away responsibly”.