The Spanish soccer federation (RFEF) has given its approval to a request from LaLiga golf equipment Barcelona and Villarreal to play a league match in Miami this season.
ESPN reported on Sunday that RFEF executives have been set to debate the difficulty in a board assembly on Monday, in step one in a course of which might see a Spanish first division sport being performed abroad for the primary time.
Villarreal are as a consequence of host Barcelona on matchday 17 in LaLiga this season, scheduled for the weekend of Dec. 20, 2025.
Each golf equipment have now requested for the sport to be performed at Miami’s Laborious Rock Stadium, reasonably than Villarreal’s Estadio de La Cerámica.
“In its assembly on Aug. 11, 2025, the board of the RFEF has learnt of the request from golf equipment Villarreal CF and FC Barcelona to play their matchday 17 first division sport in the USA,” the RFEF mentioned in a press release on Monday.
“After receiving and reviewing the paperwork acquired, and after the approval of the board, the RFEF will cross on the request to UEFA to start the procedures for FIFA’s prior authorisation of the sport at Laborious Rock Stadium, Miami, on December 20 2025, in accordance with FIFA’s worldwide sport laws and the relevant guidelines authorised by the RFEF.”
Enjoying a aggressive match in the USA has lengthy been a prime precedence for LaLiga, with league president Javier Tebas telling ESPN final 12 months that he hoped to do so through the 2025-26 marketing campaign.
LaLiga’s first bid to play a sport in Miami concerned a match between Barcelona and Girona in January 2019, however the league was compelled to again down after the plan met opposition from the RFEF, UEFA and FIFA.
In 2024, FIFA arrange a working group to analyse the implications of taking part in aggressive home matches abroad, having beforehand opposed the idea.
The transfer got here after FIFA and the US Soccer Federation confronted authorized motion from LaLiga’s US companions, Relevent Sports activities, over the blocking of the league’s proposal.
The events later reached an settlement, and the go well with was dismissed, whereas the RFEF can also be now supportive of the plans underneath new president Rafael Louzan.
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In July, Italy’s soccer federation gave its backing to a Serie A request to play this season’s league sport between AC Milan and Como — scheduled for February — in Australia.
Within the case of Villarreal vs. Barcelona, all of the federations concerned — the RFEF, USSF, UEFA, CONCACAF and FIFA — would wish to log out on the transfer.
The Spanish Supercopa is already performed overseas, with the RFEF holding the competitors in Saudi Arabia in 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.