LONDON (AP) — The Spanish soccer league wants to resurrect plans to stage a regular-season game in the United States.
La Liga president Javier Tebas said Thursday that he was not giving up on taking a top Spanish match abroad after controversial plans to play outside Miami last year were scrapped in the face of pushback from clubs, players and fans.
“We are going to try again. I’m not sure when. We have to bring it up at the right time,” Tebas told
a news conference in London.
Barcelona and Villarreal were slated to play at the Miami Dolphins' Hard Rock Stadium on Dec. 20, which would have made Spain the first major European league to move a regular-season match abroad. But those plans fell through in October as opposition grew, with some claiming it impacted the fairness of the competition by moving a game overseas.
“I don’t think it will cause damage,” Tebas said Thursday when attending the Financial Times Business of Football Summit. “We are talking about one match out of 380 in a season.”
Tebas is seeking to emulate the model of the NFL, which last season staged games in London, Berlin, Dublin, Madrid and Sao Paulo. The NBA also plays games overseas.
He said European soccer's big leagues had benefited from fans all over the world, with broadcast rights sold for billions of dollars globally. Tebas said taking a game abroad was a sign of respect, as well as an opportunity to promote, much like U.S. sports have done in recent years.
“We celebrate Halloween, which we never celebrated 20 years ago. We have NFL games. We have NBA games," Tebas said. "Let’s see if 50 years from now we’ll have the stadiums empty, and the ones for the NBA and the NFL full. Because they don’t bring just one game, they all bring many games.
“They don’t come to Europe on vacation, they come to get fans to sign television deals, to get children for their competitions. In other words, we opened the doors to Europe. Instead, the United States, which opens the doors for us to go, we close them here in Europe."
The league had succeeded in October in getting approval from soccer bodies UEFA and the Spanish soccer federation to stage the game abroad. But pushback included a player protest and later in October game promoter Relevent informed La Liga of the need to postpone, saying there was insufficient time to “properly execute an event of this scale.”
A Spanish league game was previously planned to be played in the U.S. in 2019 only for FIFA to say its ruling council had adopted a policy emphasizing the "sporting principle that official league matches must be played within the territory of the respective member association.” Barcelona then withdrew its commitment to play.
Tebas also weighed into the ongoing wait for an outcome of Manchester City's charges over allegedly breaching the Premier League's financial rules.
City was accused by the league in February 2023 of more than 100 breaches, but despite an independent commission hearing the case between September and December 2024, no ruling has been announced. City has always denied the charges.
“When you have this type of situation, you’re generating uncertainty and that’s damaging for an institution’s image,” Tebas said.
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James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
