{"id":321229,"date":"2025-10-21T13:18:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T13:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/321229\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T13:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T13:18:12","slug":"thibaut-courtois-accuses-la-liga-of-manipulation-after-protests-against-miami-game-not-broadcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/321229\/","title":{"rendered":"Thibaut Courtois accuses La Liga of \u2018manipulation\u2019 after protests against Miami game not broadcast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois has accused La Liga of \u201cmanipulation\u201d after a number of the weekend\u2019s protests against the plan to host Villarreal versus Barcelona in Miami were not broadcast.<\/p>\n<p>Teams staged protests against the plans during the weekend\u2019s La Liga fixtures by not starting play for the opening 15 seconds of matches. The protests were not widely broadcast and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6730113\/2025\/10\/19\/la-liga-protests-barcelona-villarreal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Athletic reported<\/a> this was after La Liga asked TV companies not to show them, according to multiple people familiar with the request.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, La Liga president Javier Tebas wrote a letter, seen by The Athletic, to Spanish Footballers\u2019 Association (AFE) president David Aganzo, in which he said the planned strike could lead to \u201cunwanted consequences\u201d for players involved.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know why you\u2019re surprised, they\u2019ve been doing this for a long time,\u201d Courtois told a press conference on Tuesday. \u201cMaking public statements on social media, I\u2019ve never seen a president of any sports league speak like that. Hiding the protests is hiding, it\u2019s manipulating, and it\u2019s serious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>La Liga matches are produced by the company HBS, following a previous agreement with Mediapro. HBS did not respond to a request for comment, and La Liga declined to comment over the weekend. La Liga has been approached for further comment following Courtois\u2019 remarks.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6694029\/2025\/10\/06\/uefa-la-liga-serie-a-abroad\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UEFA authorised La Liga\u2019s plans<\/a> to host December\u2019s match at the Hard Rock Stadium on October 6, and, pending FIFA\u2019s approval, it will become the first European top-flight match to be played in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>The game had been due to be played at Villarreal\u2019s Estadi de la Ceramica, and Courtois argued the plans promoted unfairness as it removed home advantage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, totally, it distorts the competition,\u201d he added. \u201cIn the NBA or the NFL, they play 82 games and it doesn\u2019t change anything if they play elsewhere. These leagues are owned by the clubs, unlike LaLiga, which does not comply with the players\u2019 agreement and distorts the competition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s right. We know that in La Liga playing against a team at home is not the same as playing away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Madrid have frequently voiced their disagreement to the fixture in the U.S. and have sent two letters to the Spanish Sports Council (CSD) in recent weeks expressing their opposition to hosting La Liga matches outside of Spain.<\/p>\n<p>Representatives from the AFE and La Liga are in talks to arrange a meeting to discuss next steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois has accused La Liga of \u201cmanipulation\u201d after a number of the weekend\u2019s protests&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":321230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1386,1582,276,2961,4732,224,5337,10214,221,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-321229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-liga","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-real-madrid","16":"tag-soccer","17":"tag-sports-business"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115412356842243457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}