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Javier Tebas has vowed that La Liga would try again after plans to take a game abroad fell through when promoters announced they were cancelling Villarreal’s meeting with Barcelona in Miami on 20 December.
The league had been informed of the decision on Tuesday, with an announcement made at half-time of Villarreal’s Champions League game against Manchester City at the Estadio de la Cerámica, where they will face Barcelona, instead of at the Hard Rock Stadium. The timing of the announcement was described as “a complete lack of respect” by the Villarreal coach, Marcelino García Toral.
The decision came with the pre-sale process open but 24 hours before tickets were put on sale, and after a protest from the Spanish footballers’ union (AFE) at the weekend in which the first 15 seconds of every top-flight game were not played. Relevent Sports announced there was not time to organise the game properly. The league was waiting for a judgment from Spain’s sports council and football authorities in North America. Uefa had reluctantly given the go-ahead, saying it did not have the authority to prevent the game taking place.
“After conversations with the promoter of the official La Liga match in Miami, they have communicated their decision to cancel the organisation of the event given the uncertainty generated in Spain in the last few weeks,” a statement from the league said. Tebas, the La Liga president, had announced the staging of the game in Miami 13 days earlier. This was its fourth failed attempt to take a game to Miami, starting with the announcement of Girona v Barcelona in 2018. Unlike previous attempts, this time the league had the support of the Spanish football federation.
On Wednesday Tebas lamented the cancellation on his X account, and criticised the football authorities, which he described as “naive and passive governors who do not know how to distinguish between the essential and the unimportant”, and the players’ union. He dismissed the AFE’s claim that they it had not been consulted, suggesting the information it says has been withheld was explained when the project was first proposed in 2018.
Although he did not name them, he also attacked Real Madrid, who have been the most determined opponents of the project and have long been at loggerheads with the league. Madrid claim that allowing Barcelona to play an away game in Miami, where it is likely their supporters will dominate the stadium, undermined the integrity of the competition.
“Today Spanish football has lost out on an opportunity to advance, project itself to the world and strengthen its future,” Tebas wrote. “From a narrow and parochial perspective, the defence of ‘tradition’ has been invoked, while the real traditions of European football are threatened by decisions from the governing bodies that, year after year, destroy the domestic leagues, which are the true motor of the European football industry.”
Tebas added in clear allusion to Real Madrid: “The ‘integrity of the competition’ is cited by those who have spent years questioning that very integrity, pressuring referees and administrators, constructing distorted narratives or using political and media pressure as sporting tools.
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“Others, maybe without realising it and in good faith, have been dragged into debates about something that was agreed in 2018, when the ‘information’ [the AFE requested] – which they had then and they have now – was just an excuse to end the project.
“I would like to thank Villarreal CF and FC Barcelona for their commitment and generosity in forming part of a project that only sought the growth of our competition. They were not thinking about themselves; they were thinking about everyone.
“La Liga will keep working, seriously and with rigour and commitment to ensure that Spanish football continues to be competitive, against those that seek to destroy it, and always with respect to its roots and ensuring its sustainability. Spanish football deserves to look towards the future with ambition, not fear. We will keep trying. This time we were close.”
