Why Barça vs. Villarreal in Miami was cancelled

Less than two weeks after LaLiga announced it would stage its first-ever regular-season match outside of Spain, with champions Barcelona taking on Villarreal at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium on Dec. 20, it confirmed on Tuesday that the game was off.

It was the latest in a long line of setbacks for the league in its attempts to host a competitive fixture on foreign soil, but certainly the most chastening and high profile.

While top European clubs playing matches against each other abroad is nothing new — with heavyweight clashes on preseason tours and even Super Cup matches now annual events across the globe — so far they have yet to follow the lead of U.S. sports leagues like the NFL and NBA in staging regular-season league fixtures beyond their own borders.

LaLiga’s aborted scheduling of Barcelona vs. Villarreal in Miami was as close as any of Europe’s top leagues have gotten to taking their show on the road. So why did it fall through? Will LaLiga and other leagues keep trying? And why are Real Madrid among the big winners? ESPN’s Alex Kirkland, Sam Marsden and Lizzy Becherano explain what happened and what comes next.

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LaLiga announced on Oct. 8 that the Miami game was going ahead. How much time and effort did it take to get them to that point?

LaLiga first announced formal plans to hold a regular-season game in the U.S. back in 2018, when it signed a 15-year partnership with Relevent to promote and grow the league in North America. The first failed bid involved Girona vs. Barcelona in January 2019; since then, there have been multiple attempts, including with Villarreal vs. Atlético Madrid in February 2020, and Barça vs. Atlético in December 2024. But it had never gotten as close as this.

Previously, opposition from world governing body FIFA, the Spanish football federation (RFEF), and U.S. Soccer was a major roadblock. But that vanished when Relevent’s successful lawsuits against FIFA and U.S. Soccer forced a climbdown in 2024, and a post-Luis Rubiales change of leadership at the RFEF led to relations thawing with LaLiga. That left a potentially viable path to making the game happen.

One big hurdle was cleared in August, when the RFEF agreed to pass the Miami game request on to UEFA; then, on Oct. 6, European football’s governing body “reluctantly” approved it, citing issues with FIFA’s under-review rules on the subject. A source told ESPN that U.S. Soccer approved the match being hosted in the United States, while regional confederation Concacaf received a request from the RFEF on Oct. 9 for the match to be played on its territory. As of Tuesday, Concacaf was still deliberating on that request, but LaLiga had long since announced that the game would be going ahead, despite widespread opposition and a lack of clarity from Spain’s sports ministry (CSD).

And now, two weeks later, it’s off. What changed?

Opposition to the project had become more visible, more vocal and more organized in recent weeks. Real Madrid’s stance was no surprise — they said in August they would do what they could to block the plans, asking FIFA, UEFA and the CSD to step in — and in any case they oppose LaLiga on a long list of issues. But in recent days their coach Xabi Alonso had also spoken out, as had senior players such as Dani Carvajal and Thibaut Courtois. Even Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong and coach Hansi Flick said they didn’t like the idea.

Last weekend’s leaguewide protest, organized by club captains and the players’ union AFE, was an attention-grabbing initiative, and got even more coverage thanks to the league’s efforts to obscure it on worldwide TV coverage. Beyond those dissenting voices, which could possibly have been ignored, there was also the “uncertainty” cited in LaLiga and Relevent’s cancellation statements. There was the threat of legal action from Real Madrid, and the fact that the CSD — susceptible to political pressure — was yet to formally pronounce on the issue.

There were other minor issues, brushed off by LaLiga sources to ESPN as not being significant, but factors that were big enough to sow more seeds of doubt. After receiving the application to host a game in the U.S. from the RFEF, Concacaf began to consult key regional and global stakeholders. During the review process, the confederation went to the RFEF with a list of questions before receiving heavy pushback on a variety of topics, including a FIFA rule that pertains to the refereeing for the match, a source told ESPN.

FIFA regulations state: “The host Confederation and FIFA may replace the proposed appointed referees at its sole discretion. Once authorization has been granted, the host Confederation shall notify the host Member, FIFA and the non-host Confederation(s).” Concacaf questioned the RFEF on how officials would approach the officiating of the match, insisting that the confederation of North America, Central America and the Caribbean be in charge of appointing the referees for the game. A source with knowledge of the situation told ESPN that the RFEF did not agree with the policy. Still, despite pushback from the RFEF, Concacaf had neither approved nor denied the request made to host a game in the United States.

There was also the possibility of a congested schedule at Hard Rock Stadium. The Miami Dolphins play an NFL game on Dec. 21, and there is also the chance that the University of Miami will have a game there in the first round of the College Football Playoff, due to take place on Dec. 20. However, while the packed schedule would not have been ideal for the parties involved, stadium sources told ESPN they were confident that the field would be able to accommodate all events.

Therefore, the full picture isn’t yet clear, but with just two months to go, the clock was ticking — “there is insufficient time to properly execute an event of this scale,” Relevent said on Tuesday — and with so many questions still unanswered, organizers couldn’t risk putting tickets on sale this week, only to later suffer what would have been an even more embarrassing retreat.

Was anyone actually in favor of this game, besides the organizers and the clubs involved?

Good question. Of course, LaLiga, Relevent and the two clubs were in favor, but there was very little public support from elsewhere. UEFA’s statement spoke of being opposed to domestic games being played abroad, but effectively suggested its hands were tied until it is able to make changes to the regulations. Once UEFA had “reluctantly” approved the game, a source told ESPN that FIFA would not step in to override the decision, suggesting it was one which had to be taken by European football’s governing body. However, according to a source, U.S. Soccer approved the match being hosted in the United States, while Concacaf had not yet turned it down.

All that said, the general opposition to taking the game outside of Spain was quite weak. Even the AFE’s public statements focused on the desire for more information to be made available from LaLiga. They demanded confirmation that the players’ working rights would be respected.

“We were neither for nor against the game being played [in Miami],” Atlético Madrid’s Koke said on Tuesday. “We were asking for transparency.” The AFE president, David Aganzo, had suggested taking the issue to politicians and the CSD, but the general feeling was he had not gone as hard as he could.

Who are the biggest winners and losers here?

Real Madrid have come out of this very well. They will feel their stance has been vindicated, and chalk this up as a significant win in their never-ending battle for power and influence with LaLiga and its president, Javier Tebas. It’s also a victory for many players, fans and pundits who opposed the Miami game on fairness grounds — with genuine concerns about the integrity of the home/away format being permanently compromised — and those who worried about the longer-term implications for local, match-going fans.

As for losers: the big ones are LaLiga and Tebas themselves, having pushed so hard this time, at the fourth attempt, and lost credibility with this latest withdrawal. It’s not great news for Villarreal either, who took a risk — alienating some fans — with their acceptance of the plan. Ultimately, they were rewarded with nothing in return. They are deeply unhappy with how this was handled. Barça, meanwhile, miss out on a payday that club president Joan Laporta had said on Sunday would “make up for having to play two games at the Estadi Johan Cruyff,” earlier this season, when having to play at a 6,000-capacity stadium severely dented their matchday revenue while the renovation of their Camp Nou home continues.

And what about the fans? Whether they are winners or losers here may depend on what side of the Atlantic they are on. Barça say they “regret deeply that U.S.-based supporters are denied the opportunity to see an official game in their country.” However, for Villarreal fans, and especially season-ticker holders, it means one of their two biggest home games of the season (the other being Madrid’s visit) is now back at the Estadio de la Cerámica. There were plans in place for supporters to travel to Miami, and for others to be compensated for the loss of a home fixture, but the overriding feeling will be of relief at being able to see their team tackle the Spanish champions on home soil.

Is this the end of the matter? What will it take now for the game to happen?

If we focus on what we know at this early stage, it’s unlikely to be the end of LaLiga’s plans to take a game abroad. Firstly, Tebas has spoken many times about this being a multiyear project. It has failed four times now and he was more fuming than ever after this latest failure. Posting on social media, he made not-so-subtle references to Madrid and the AFE, two of the biggest critics of the proposals.

Tebas wrote, without explicitly naming Madrid: “The ‘integrity of the competition’ argument is invoked by those who have been questioning that same integrity for years, pressuring referees and leaders, constructing distorted narratives, or using political and media pressure as a sporting tool.” His line about others “being drawn into debates about information that was already addressed in 2018 was just an excuse to kill the project” was a nod to the AFE’s demonstrations. “We will keep trying,” he signed off. “This time, we came very close.”

Relevent’s statement, meanwhile, suggests that, in addition to the friction in Spain, the lack of time left to organize the game was a significant hurdle. That can be fixed next time quite easily with better planning.

Dig a little deeper, though, and it’s worth wondering what the consequences of this latest setback will be. Villarreal are especially unhappy with how everything has played out. Coach Marcelino García Toral said it was “disrespectful” how the official announcement was made during his side’s UEFA Champions League defeat to Manchester City on Tuesday. Sources at the club bemoaned the management of the game from start to finish, saying they never got a straight answer about anything.

It begs the question: Would Villarreal be prepared to sign up for another game in the U.S.? And what will other clubs looking in from the outside be thinking? There had already been confusion this week when Laporta said Barça would receive a payment for the Miami game, in contrast to his counterpart at Villarreal, Fernando Roig Negueroles, who had said the opposite. It will leave the other clubs with plenty of questions should LaLiga ask them to move a fixture abroad in the future. What’s really in it for them?

Meanwhile, the issue cannot be parked due to the cancellation of the LaLiga game; Italy’s Serie A is planning to play a match between AC Milan and Como in Perth, Australia, in February.

A working group set up by FIFA is expected to announce recommendations to rule changes regarding the governing of international matches in the coming months. The working group includes representatives from member associations, confederations, European Football Clubs (EFC) and global players’ union FIFPRO, among others. LaLiga will be attentive to any rulings which could make or break their plans moving forward.