Miami Twice?
The La Liga game scheduled for 20 December in Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium has been cancelled.
For now. It will surely, just like the Terminator, be back.
Villareal’s home match with Barcelona was to be the first major European league game to be moved to an overseas venue. But the decision has been reversed on the grounds that there is insufficient time to make all of the necessary arrangements.
But it feels like a postponement rather than a proper cancellation.
And at least this allows more time for the parties concerned to get their acts together. Even as the announcement was made (minutes before Villareal’s Champions League game versus Manchester City) the ‘home’ club was getting ready to complain about the lack of communication and organisation around the fixture.
And while the league and RFEF (Spanish Football Federation) were unsurprisingly keen on it taking place, the move had been met with a very mixed reaction from everyone else.
The two directly involved were definitely not on the same page. For instance, Villareal – while broadly supportive of the concept - said they were not benefitting financially at all from it (but had demanded compensation for season ticket holders) while Barca claimed they were being ‘paid from the moment they boarded the plane.’
A big club getting more money than the small club? In Spanish football? Surely not?
Barcelona’s players even got involved in the protests held at Spanish stadiums where they stood still for the first 15 seconds of La Liga matches. Most TV viewers probably just thought their dodgy streaming device was on the fritz.
I’ll Be Back
The league have reiterated their desire to go ahead with the experiment. It feels more when than if, given that it had been somewhat ‘reluctantly’ approved by UEFA, if only because of the legal minefield coming their way if they fought it.
La Liga’s website, when I last checked, was running an EAFC26 advert with the header ‘The Club is Yours.’ It did not mention that it might be yours, but you could have to travel almost 4,000 miles to watch them play at some point in the future.
And that journey feels tiny given the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) have also sanctioned a game – AC Milan v Como – to be played in Perth, Australia in February. If the players protest by standing still for 15 seconds in Serie A, will anyone actually notice? I digress.
Predictably, the RFEF (Spanish Football Federation) said the overseas game would be ‘good for football’ but don’t state where, or for whom in football, it’s good. It’s probably good for making money, and it’s not too bad for fans based in Florida.
But who else is it good for?
Not fans in Spain. But the TV broadcasters cut away to other parts of the stadium, or overhead shots, while the players’ protests on the field were taking place, which says a lot.
Nothing to see here.
Of course, the Premier League has long mooted the ‘39th game’ where a round of fixtures are played abroad but that don’t reduce the number of home fixtures a club has in a season. It’s still received short shrift from fans, and they’ve gone cool on the idea in recent years; possibly after the kicking the ‘Big 6’ got when they joined the European Super League for 36 hours (roughly the time it would take a Milan fan to get to Perth. Just saying.)
A Step Too Far?
I was in Miami this time last year. I really liked the place. Lovely beaches, great food, very nice vibe. Not sure it’s the best place for La Liga matches though. It’s a little too far to the West for a start.
The desperation to expand games beyond a league’s own shores is interesting. The clubs already play lucrative pre-season friendlies overseas, so they are not only spreading their brand and growing a wider fanbase, but doing so against local opposition so it helps that country to grow too.
Having a domestic league game in another country makes less sense to me. The only obvious rationale is that they are trying to emulate what the NFL and MLB do; growing the sport’s brand beyond the US and in countries where the sport is a fairly foreign concept. But they are sports that are pretty exclusive to their country of origin, and thus a new audience is learning about them, while football is a completely global game already.
So having a game in another country hardly spreads the word and awakens a new audience. If there was a movement to make football even more global and share it around so everyone got to see different teams, that would at least be a rationale that people might be able to follow, but let’s face it - Narva Trans and Paide Linnameeskond are hardly going to play their Estonian Premium Liiga game at the Camp Nou anytime soon are they?
So it probably comes down to money. Doesn’t it always?
And at the expense of the ordinary fans. Doesn’t it always?
Fans who faithfully follow their team (and spend a lot doing so) now have to miss the game or shell out a fortune. Imagine a Milan fan who hasn’t missed a home game for years. Now he/she has to travel to Perth to keep that run going. But why should they have to?
If they wanted to watch a game in Miami, or Perth, then they can. They can go watch Inter Miami, or Perth Glory. It’s how football has operated – and fairly successfully - for a century and a half.
Taking A Mile
But, if I were a fan, the question of whether to play in Miami or not is not really the issue.
It’s not really going to change too much for Villareal. And I think they’ve probably already heard of Barcelona in Miami, although it might help shift a few more shirts.
The real issue is that it’s the thin end of the wedge. Once it happens, what next? The floodgates will open, and football only ever needs to be offered an inch to take a mile.
Look at the way that next year’s World Cup has increased to 48 teams, and already they are suggesting it be 64 for the one after that. Where does it end? 2034 in Saudi having 210 teams (with San Marino and Eritrea meeting in a two-legged play-off for the final spot)?
The point is, once it starts it won’t stop.
We’ll be staging many more league games (not just La Liga, but the Premier League too) in Miami and plenty of other destinations around the world before too long.
With the same big teams and star players. The few getting ever bigger and richer.
The final words on the matter, for now, poles apart.
La Liga President Javier Tebas thinks it’s a setback to building new revenue streams and international competitiveness (whatever that means), and a ‘lost opportunity’, dismissing negative views as ‘traditionalists’ with narrow minds and a provincial perspective, while insisting the league will continue to attempt to play matches overseas. But he’s got form when it comes to failing to read the room.
The fans’ group Football Supporters Europe say the levels of opposition against the plans had been deafening and ‘these attempts to destabilise the foundation of the game must stop now.’
But then, since when did it matter what fans think?
As someone from one of London’s biggest clubs said recently on LinkedIn – “the fans who matter most may never set foot in your stadium”
But maybe they might come to watch you in Miami or Perth.
