{"id":518015,"date":"2025-10-21T22:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T22:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/518015\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T22:00:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T22:00:19","slug":"la-liga-cancels-miami-match-after-opposition-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/518015\/","title":{"rendered":"La Liga cancels Miami match after opposition in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">The Dec. 20 La Liga match between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/10\/16\/spanish-soccer-boss-calls-la-ligas-miami-match-a-win-for-global-fans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/10\/16\/spanish-soccer-boss-calls-la-ligas-miami-match-a-win-for-global-fans\/\">FC Barcelona and Villarreal CF in Miami<\/a> that was slated to be the first regular-season league game ever held outside a European league\u2019s home country will not be played as scheduled. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">La Liga on Tuesday announced its decision to \u201ccancel the organization of the event\u201d following backlash in Spain. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">Relevent Sports, which was set to promote and operate the historic match, informed the league earlier in the day of the need to postpone. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">The decision follows a weekend in which players staged on-field protests about the game being moved outside Spain. Barcelona\u2019s top rival, Real Madrid, expressed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/10\/20\/la-liga-players-protest-leagues-decision-for-miami-game\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/10\/20\/la-liga-players-protest-leagues-decision-for-miami-game\/\">staunch opposition to the plan<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">\u201cLa Liga deeply regrets that this project, which represented a historic and unparalleled opportunity for the international expansion of Spanish soccer, will not be able to move forward,\u201d the organization said in a statement. \u201cHolding an official match outside our borders would have been a decisive step in the global growth of the competition, strengthening the international presence of clubs, the positioning of players, and the visibility of Spanish soccer in a strategic market such as the United States. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">\u201cThe project fully complied with all federative regulations and did not affect the integrity of the competition, as confirmed by the competent institutions responsible for ensuring compliance, which opposed it for other reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">Relevent and La Liga had been pushing to stage a match in Miami since 2018, and it appeared December\u2019s game would be the culmination of those efforts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">\u201cGiven the current uncertainty in Spain, there is insufficient time to properly execute an event of this scale,\u201d Relevent said in a statement. \u201cIt would also be irresponsible to begin selling tickets without a confirmed match in place.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">Serie A now has the inside track to host the first European league match abroad after receiving begrudging approval from UEFA (alongside La Liga) to stage a game between AC Milan and Como 1907 in Perth, Australia, in February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dec. 20 La Liga match between FC Barcelona and Villarreal CF in Miami that was slated to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,7325,10031,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-518015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-laliga","11":"tag-soccer","12":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115414409183845351","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}