Battle For The Soul Of Spanish Football

La Liga president Javier Tebas is facing mounting opposition to his plan to play a league match in the USA

- Side Lowe

There are 106km between Camp Nou and Montilivi, but when Barcelona play their away game against Girona in January the journey could be a lot longer – for both teams. Instead of an hour’s drive north, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Philippe Coutinho and co will board a plane and fly 7,555km across the Atlantic – at least they will if Javier Tebas gets his way.

The president of La Liga wants to take one game per season to Miami, and this season the chosen match is Girona versus Barcelona.

The two clubs have formally written to request permission to do so, and the league is pushing hard, seeking to convince the various stakeholders who they had previously ignored. They have an agreement in place to stage the game at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium but whether that agreement will be upheld and permission granted –seemingly a foregone conclusion at first, with hardly any problems even contemplated by the league – is another matter. Tebas rates the chances at 90 per cent, but that may be optimistic.

Spanish Federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales, whose battles with Tebas are a central feature of Spanish football, says that the agreement means “nothing” without their say-so as it is the federation that has the power to authorise the game, not the league. And he’s not keen, arguing that Tebas “has signed a deal that is not up to him to sign”.