Spain could face €30,000 fine for keeping Lamine Yamal up past his bedtime

Lamine Yamal may be the revelation of Euro 2024, but according to German labour laws, he shouldn’t be playing.

BILD have highlighted a rule in the host nation that foreigners employed in Germany under the age of 18 are not allowed to work after 8pm.

Paragraph 14, Clause Seven of Germany’s youth employment law states that under-18s are only permitted to work between 06:00 in the morning and 20:00 in the evening.

That wasn’t an issue for Yamal in Spain‘s opening 3-0 win over Croatia, but it was against Italy, and will be again vs Albania, with a kick-off time of 9pm.

This rule was last brought up when Jann-Fiete Arp featured for Hamburg in 2017 aged 17. The match was an unusually late kickoff on a Friday night.

On that occasion Hamburg applied for a state-level exemption, something it appears Spain haven’t done.

It’s also reported that the penalty for breaking the rule is a €30,000 fine.