La Liga president Javier Tebas didn’t explicitly name Real Madrid during a lengthy social media post lamenting the cancelation of the Miami-based league fixture between Villarreal and Barcelona, but didn’t deploy much subtlety when accusing certain forces of “killing the project.”
The decision to stage a La Liga match outside Spain was subjected to rampant controversy. Real Madrid’s hierarchy, manager and players have made little secret of their utter disdain towards a money-grabbing scheme which they believe would “affect the integrity of the competition,” to use the words of goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. Dani Carvajal called it a “clear corruption of the competition.”
The argument goes that by shifting Villarreal vs. Barcelona away from the Estadio de la Cerámica to South Beach, the reigning La Liga champions have one fewer away game to contest than the rest of the division.
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Tebas wasn’t impressed by this argument. UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, couldn’t find any legal way of preventing leagues from staging games wherever they wish—AC Milan will face Como in Perth, Australia as part of the Serie A schedule next year—and so a date for the Miami fixture was set on Dec. 20.
The clash was then promptly canceled on Tuesday night. The organizers blamed a lack of adequate planning time but Tebas clearly felt that the widespread distaste for this project—which was borne out in a league-wide protest over the weekend—had something to do with it.
“Today, Spanish football has lost an opportunity to move forward, project itself to the world, and strengthen its future,” La Liga’s infamously outspoken president wrote on X.
“The defense of ‘tradition’ is invoked from a narrow and provincial perspective, while the true traditions of European football are threatened by decisions from the institutions that govern it, which year after year destroy national leagues, the true engine of the football industry in Europe, amid the naivety and passivity of European leaders who fail to distinguish the inconsequential from the essential.
“The ‘integrity of the competition’ is appealed to by those who have spent years questioning that very integrity, pressuring referees, leaders, constructing distorted narratives, or using political and media pressure as a sporting tool,” Tebas continued, directly quoting the words that several Real Madrid players had used to lambast the Miami project.
La Liga initially proposed to schedule a clash between Barcelona and Girona in the United States back in 2018 but, much to Tebas’s evident chagrin, they have once again been foiled.
Barcelona had only just finished thumping Olympiacos 6–1 in a Champions League rout when the news dropped. The club subsequently released a measured statement which began: “FC Barcelona respects and abides by the decision to cancel the match against Villarreal in Miami for Matchday 17 of La Liga, just as it respected and abided by the decision to play the match at the time.”
However, the cash-strapped Catalan outfit went on to hint at the frustration of this lucrative revenue being wiped out. “FC Barcelona regrets the missed opportunity to expand the competition’s image in a strategic market with the capacity for growth and resource generation for the benefit of all.”
Barça president Joan Laporta had admitted earlier this week that he was “not enthusiastic” about the venture, but conceded: “It gives us the pleasure of bringing in money, just like in Miami. Money will be made in Miami. Villarreal and Barça will be the biggest beneficiaries.”
Tebas ended his rant with a message of intended defiance: “Spanish football deserves to look to the future with ambition, not with fear. We will keep trying. This time, we were very close.”
