La Liga players reject proposal to play game in USA after Premier League makes stance clear

La Liga had planned to take Villarreal’s game with Barcelona to Miami but those hopes have been dealt a huge blow as leading lights in Spain rejected the proposal

The PFA in Spain (AFE) have come together and made it clear that they’re against taking Barcelona’s clash with Villarreal to Miami in December. The captains of the twenty La Liga sides met on Thursday and have opposed plans to take games overseas.

They claim the lack of information and conversations from La Liga regarding their decision to head across the Atlantic to Florida make it impossible to back their proposal. For years La Liga bosses have been wanting to take a game to the United States.

And whilst some clubs are keen, others are firmly against it. Real Madrid among them. The Spanish Football Federation finally agreed to pitch the idea to FIFA and UEFA recently with Villarreal’s home game with Barcelona potentially being played at the Hard Rock Stadium.

However the lack of collaboration regarding the idea has been made clear by some of the leading players in the country and they hit back after a request for more information on the proposal was denied.

A statement read: “Backed by the captains of the LaLiga clubs, AFE opposes playing a league game outside of Spain. The captains of every team met on Thursday to discuss the request, as announced by the Spanish Football Federation [RFEF] earlier in August, for a game to be played outside of the country, which was submitted to UEFA and FIFA.

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“AFE requested a detailed report from the league in order to inform the players of the situation and hear their opinions. In its response, the league only informed us of the progress of the authorisation process.

“In view of this situation, given the lack of dialogue and information provided, the initiation of a project promoted by La Liga and approved without any information by the RFEF is disrespectful to the players, as it involves changes at a sporting level in addition to travel outside the country as workers within the framework of a domestic league.”

Spain have taken their Super Cup abroad, but are yet to see a La Liga match played outside of the country. The Premier League has expressed no appetite to see its matches take place outside of England with chief executive Richard Masters recently putting that idea to bed.

He told the BBC: “We don’t have any plans to play matches abroad. It’s not anywhere near my in-tray and it’s not a debate around our table.”

Masters also added: “The Premier League flirted with this over a decade ago and the reason was to grow the league internationally and we were able to do this through different means – digital means, broadcast partners, concepts like the summer series in the US. The necessity that was driving that concept has dissipated.”

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