Barcelona and Girona players remained perfectly still for the first 15 seconds of their La Liga match, before the Spanish champions left it late to secure a 2-1 victory, and a reason has now emerged. Pedri opened the scoring inside 13 minutes, but Hansi Flick’s side found themselves back to square one by the 20th minute as Axel Witsel equalised.
There was a glut of chances to add to the scoreline, but it wasn’t until the dying moments of added time that substitute Ronald Araujo instinctively struck to lift his side a point above rivals Real Madrid, who face Getafe on Sunday. While that result carries plenty of talking points for the rest of the campaign, there’s just as much discussion around one particular moment away from the action.
Usually, it’s the fans who lead protests in football when something doesn’t sit right with them. But amid growing murmurs of player-led demonstrations against congested scheduling and the constant introduction of new competitions - as seen with UEFA and FIFA’s revamp of the Club World Cup over the summer - both sets of players took a stand against one such decision.
Barcelona & Girona Players Protest Against Fixture Being Played in USA
Barcelona Lamine Yamal vs Girona
Although TV broadcasters chose not to show the protest, the Barcelona and Girona players staged a unique 15-second act of defiance against La Liga’s decision to hold a game 4,700 miles away in the United States, which was also seen in another match on the same day.
Neither of the television feeds for Saturday’s Sevilla-Mallorca or Barcelona-Girona fixtures opened with the usual wide shot of the pitch - which would have revealed the players standing still for the first 15 seconds after kickoff in protest of the league’s plan to stage a regular-season match between Barcelona and Villarreal in Miami this December. Watch the incident below:
In a third separate protest on Friday night, the TV feed showed the outside of Oviedo's stadium while its players and Espanyol's held the protest. The feed went back to normal after 25 seconds when the players had started play, trying to mask the disconnect between the players, supporters, clubs, and those running things at the top.
The union said the symbolic action was to protest the “lack of transparency, dialogue and coherence of La Liga regarding the possibility of playing a game in the United States.” The controversial game is set to take place on December 20 and be held at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, home of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.
hard-rock-stadiumCredit: Joel Auerbach/Getty Images
According to AOL, La Liga president Javier Tebas has defended the game as a key to boosting “revenues in the mid- to long-term” and increasing the value of his competition’s television rights, which lag behind those of England’s Premier League.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta also backed the move by saying it represents an opportunity to further push into the American sports market. Meanwhile, Tebas said the league plans to make an international match an annual event.