La Liga: Spanish top flight to stage competitive game in USA
Last updated on .From the section European Football
A Spanish top-flight game will be played in the US, the first time a La Liga match has taken place overseas.
The plan is part of a 15-year partnership between La Liga and media company Relevent, which organises the International Champions Cup, to promote football in North America.
La Liga president Javier Tebas called it a "ground-breaking agreement".
The Premier League has previously discussed plans to play a '39th game' outside England and Wales.
The idea drew criticism from fans and the media, and executive chairman Richard Scudamore, who proposed the idea in 2008, said it could not happen "until the conditions are right".
Asked when the US-based match would take place and whether it would be a regular fixture, La Liga told BBC Sport it "can not confirm the teams, match, date or season".
The Spanish players' union, AFE, said it was against the US game, adding that La Liga had "ignored" the players' opinions.
"It commits them to events which only benefits La Liga, without taking into account the health of the players and the risks involved for them," AFE said in a statement.
"Footballers are not currency that can be used in business to only benefit third parties," added AFE president David Aganzo.
Tebas has previously said El Clasico, between Real Madrid and Barcelona, would "never be played outside of Spain".
But a friendly between the two clubs was played in Miami in July 2017, as part of the International Champions Cup - the first time the fixture had been played outside Spain since 1991.
On Sunday, the Spanish Super Cup was played in Morocco, the first time it has been played outside Spain.
"This extraordinary joint venture is the next giant leap in growing soccer's popularity in North America," said Stephen Ross, chairman and owner of Relevent.
"This unique relationship will create new opportunities for millions of North American soccer fans to experience the most passionate, exciting, and highest level of soccer in the world."
Comments
Join the conversation
The money men who control the direction of everything in this world simply want larger and larger unrestricted markets......if it means the dilution of part of a culture in any context, football or anything else then so be it..........they won't think twice.
But we all know they dont count anymore
Watch the English Leagues follow suit
Eventually fans at home are going to be fed up with this sort of thing and every match will just be full of tourists there for a day out.
Any semblance of atmosphere will dry up and then the ‘product’ of football will be worth far less to the TV companies.
Very sad times when football is ruled so powerfully by money!!
Quite why anyone finds whatever the USA does appealing, escapes me. They're the most vacuous and superficial nation on earth, a place where it doesn't matter how you made your money, just the fact you made it that counts. The home of empty celebrity.
The only way this should happen if ... the club gives the season ticket holders a day out i.e take the fans over there to create the home atmosphere at the ground.
If the stadium holds 70,000 and you got 30,000 season ticket holders you must take them 30,000 fans with you!
Otherwise the fans are getting mugged of
The extra money that this will make won't go to the local communities and fanbases that the clubs have represented for 100+ years, but to those who already have the money.
A sport created by the poor, ruined by the rich. Tragedy.
They have MLS - doing great, big crowds, maturing nicely. They get to see the big Euro clubs in the pre-season tournaments. TV numbers way up. No need for this money grab where a league game is taken away from home fans and sent overseas.