MADRID (AP) — Villarreal blamed poor management by the Spanish league for the cancellation of its planned regular-season game against Barcelona in the United States.
Villarreal on Wednesday expressed “discontent with La Liga over its handling of the organization of the match.” Earlier, Spanish league president Javier Tebas said “narrow-minded” views cost Spanish soccer a great chance to project itself globally.
A European fan group praised the decision to cancel the game, and the Spanish government called for more transparency in any future negotiations to try to play a league game abroad.
The Dec. 20 game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami was called off Tuesday amid growing opposition from players, fans and some clubs. The league cited the “uncertainty that has arisen in Spain over the past few weeks.”
Game promoter Relevent said it informed La Liga of the need to “postpone the planned match” because there was “insufficient time to properly execute an event of this scale” and that it would be “irresponsible to begin selling tickets without a confirmed match in place.”
A lost opportunity or an ill-conceived project?
“Spanish soccer has lost an opportunity to advance, project itself globally and strengthen its future,” Tebas said on X on Wednesday. “The defense of ‘tradition’ is invoked from a narrow-minded and provincial perspective.”
Barcelona and Villarreal were on board with playing the game abroad. The Catalan club also talked about a “missed opportunity” for Spanish soccer, while Villarreal complained about the league’s poor management of the match. It said it was considering abandoning the project if some issues had not been resolved in a meeting that was scheduled for Thursday.
“Due to the lack of progress in La Liga’s organization of the event, Villarreal CF repeatedly expressed its growing concern to the body and urged it to define key and essential aspects such as confirming the match time and contracting a travel agency to handle an operation of this scale,” the club said in a statement.
“Villarreal CF regrets that La Liga, as the organizer, failed to show better leadership in managing the project and that the La Liga match in Miami will ultimately not go ahead, as the club believes it represented a great opportunity for the international growth of both the clubs and La Liga itself,” the club said.
Villarreal coach Marcelino García Toral on Tuesday was annoyed that the announcement about the cancellation was made during the team’s Champions League match against Manchester City.
Fan group happy
UEFA’s officially recognized fan liaison group Football Supporters Europe celebrated that “La Liga’s tired idea to export a game to Miami has once again collapsed.”
“Common sense and the rules of the game have prevailed. This is a seismic victory for European football and everyone who believes the game belongs at the heart of our communities,” the group said in a statement. “La Liga’s defeat sends a clear message to the world of football: such ill-conceived projects are doomed to fail. These attempts to destabilize the foundation of the game must stop now.”
The group called for Italy’s Serie A to also scrap its plans to have AC Milan and Como play in Australia in February.
Spain’s top sports authority called for more dialogue between everyone involved before trying to promote such initiatives. Sports Council president José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes on Wednesday called for “absolute transparency” and “adequate regulations” before future attempts can be made.
Players protest
After a few failed attempts, the league had finally succeeded in getting approval from soccer bodies such as UEFA and the Spanish federation to stage its first regular-season game abroad, but opposition had grown recently in Spain.
Players stood still for a few seconds after kickoff during the weekend league matches in a protest that was censored or not fully broadcast for television audiences, drawing even more criticism against La Liga.
Tebas aimed an apparent blow at Real Madrid, the club that had most loudly opposed the game by claiming it altered the fairness of the league because it allowed Barcelona to play an away game against Villarreal on a neutral site.
“The ‘integrity of the competition’ is invoked by those who have been questioning that same integrity for years, pressuring referees and leaders, constructing distorted narratives, or using political and media pressure as a sporting tool,” he said, without naming Real Madrid.
‘We came very close’
Tebas thanked Barcelona and Villarreal “for their commitment and generosity in being part of a project that only sought the growth of our competition. They weren’t thinking about themselves, they were thinking about everyone.”
Tebas said Spanish soccer “deserves to look to the future with ambition, not fear.”
“We will keep trying,” he said. “This time, we came very close.”
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
By TALES AZZONI
AP Sports Writer
