The competitive fixture set for December is immensely controversial in Europe, but the view in the U.S. is one of inevitability
Most of La Liga spent last weekend protesting. Routinely, in each game, the referee blew his whistle to signify the start of the contest. And for exactly 15 seconds, in every single fixture, the players stood still. Some TV cameras cut away from the action. Others showed shots of the stadium from the outside.
But for those inside the ground, the first 15 seconds of a soccer match were in stasis. The universal concern was with La Liga, which last week announced a controversial yet inevitable decision to host a competitive match in the United States. And performatively or otherwise, much of the footballing world spoke out against it, with a general sentiment that the decision could rip at the very fabric of the game.
Yet there are proponents. The Eurocentric take is that the staging of the Barcelona-Villarreal match in Miami in December could ruin soccer. In the U.S., though, the perspective is far more nuanced. Yes, this is a change. Yes, this will ruffle feathers across the continent. But there’s an acknowledgement of the wider strategy to put La Liga, quite literally, on the map in North America.
“This goes beyond just the game. It’s having a solid strategy in the market… The core is to make sure that people understand that the US market is a strategic market, and this is not a one-off activation. It is part of a global strategy,” Nicolas Garcia Hemme, Managing Director of La Liga in the United States, told GOAL.
