New Delhi: La Liga have reportedly dropped plans to host Barcelona’s fixture against Atletico Madrid in the United States. However, the top-tier of Spanish football are keen on hosting other domestic games in abroad in the future.
It had been reported that Miami was marked as the stage for what is a home game for Barcelona on 22nd December.
Although the idea has been toyed with for years now, none of the big European leagues have staged a competitve game in the US. Clubs have been advocating the idea of playing in the US in order to attract a worldwide audience base and generate revenue.
For the fixture to go ahead in the USA, La Liga would require permission from FIFA, UEFA, and the Spanish Football Association. The football board believes that the December timeline is too short for them to break the pattern and generate the same number of ticket-selling figures on a different continent.
However, the plans haven’t been dismissed completely, and news sources believe that La Liga will take a fresh attempt in the next season. La Liga president Javier Tabes has for a long time stated his wish to stage some of the games of the season overseas and had even said that this could happen in the 2025-26 season.
The USA is a lucrative market, of course, but not without competition. La Liga faces fierce market battle with the Premier League, which is one of the biggest football leagues in Europe currently, with the highest number of viewership amidst the top five European football leagues.
FIFA rules stopping La Liga from entering foreign land?
FIFA had recently reviewed its policy of playing leagues’ regular-season games in foreign lands after reaching a settlement with Relevent Sports, an event promoter from the USA, in an anti-trust lawsuit brought by the latter. The case had come about due to FIFA blocking La Liga and Relevent’s attempt at conducting the Girona and Barcelona game in Miami a few years ago.
A change in FIFA’s rule would allow La Liga and all the other leagues to host their domestic games abroad. Though the Premier League haven’t spoken about any plan to host domestic games abroad, the clubs in the league are also keen on the rule change in order to increase their fanbase.
