Villarreal and Barcelona’s La Liga match in Miami has been postponed, with promoters Relevent saying there is “insufficient time” to organise the event.
A Relevant statement, first published by The Athletic on Tuesday evening, read: “Relevent has informed La Liga of the need to postpone the planned match between Villarreal CF and FC Barcelona in Miami on December 20.”
Relevent Sports, the events promoter and media rights company co-founded and owned by billionaire Miami Dolphins owner Stephen M.Ross, have a joint venture with La Liga to grow the league’s business in North America and the game was due to be played at the Dolphins’ Hard Rock stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
In August, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) approved the request for December’s La Liga fixture between Villarreal and Barcelona to be played in Miami.
The fixture was initially scheduled to take place on the weekend of December 20-21 at Villarreal’s Estadio de la Ceramica home in eastern Spain.
It would be the first time a European top-flight league fixture has taken place in the U.S, although the Spanish Super Cup has been held in Saudi Arabia in the four of the last five seasons.
On October 6, UEFA approved Italian and Spanish domestic league matches being staged overseas in a landmark ruling, while reiterating its “clear opposition” to the plans, which it said were granted “on an exceptional basis amid regulatory gaps at global level”.
Aleksander Ceferin, the president of European football’s governing body, described the decision as “regrettable” and said that it should “not be seen as setting a precedent” and that “league matches should be played on home soil”.
Serie A, the top division of Italian football, is planning to play a match between Milan and Como in Australia, with discussions having taken place over the fixture being staged in the city of Perth on the weekend of February 7-8, 2026.
La Liga’s controversial proposal sparked fury and raised questions about the league’s integrity, with the Spanish football supporters’ association, FASFE, joining with Villarreal and Barca fan groups to express their “absolute, total and firm opposition” to the plans.
Real Madrid have called on FIFA, global football’s governing body, to prevent the fixtures from taking place in Miami, saying it would undermine the “integrity” of La Liga and prove to be an unwelcome “turning point in the world of football”.
Glenn Micallef — the EU commissioner for intergenerational fairness, youth, culture and sport — has said moving the fixture would be “betrayal” of the Spanish clubs’ local communities and also called for discussions with representatives across the game to tackle this and several other controversial topics in football.
The Spanish league first attempted to stage a match abroad in 2018 with a proposal for Girona’s home league game against Barcelona to be played in Miami. However, this was met with opposition from both the RFEF and FIFA, world football’s governing body, as was a similar proposal the following year to play Atletico Madrid’s league match against Villarreal in the U.S..
Since then, relations between La Liga and the RFEF have improved. Meanwhile, the possibility of playing domestic league fixtures abroad has increased after FIFA was dropped from a landmark lawsuit by the U.S. events promoter Relevent in April 2024.