October 22 – The tumult surrounding the proposed La Liga match featuring Barcelona and Villarreal is growing louder by the day, with Real Madrid’s superstar goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, adding his voice in an incendiary attack on the proposed game in Miami, warning that the move “totally affects the integrity of the competition.”
While the December 20 clash at Hard Rock Stadium has been ‘reluctantly’ approved by UEFA, all the participants that matter have been wilfully ignored.
“Yes, it totally affects the integrity of the competition,” Courtois said before Madrid’s Champions League match against Juventus. “It’s easy to talk about the NBA and the NFL [playing overseas]. But in the NBA, they have 82 games – it barely changes anything. Here in LaLiga, they do whatever they want. It breaches the players’ agreement. You have to play home and away. Villarreal away is a difficult game. Everyone should play at home and away, barring force majeure.”
Last weekend, LaLiga players staged in-match protests halting play for the first 15 seconds of the first half, complaining that there is a lack of “transparency and dialogue.” Yet television feeds mysteriously cut away from the action without any comment. “Hiding [the protests] is censorship and manipulation,” Courtois fumed. “That’s serious.”
Real Madrid have officially asked UEFA and Spain’s Sports Ministry to block the Miami game. But with LaLiga president Javier Tebas seemingly hellbent on making it happen, a dangerous question now looms in the form of a players’ strike. It has happened in the US in all of the big sports and resulted in entire seasons being cancelled.
If the La Liga continues to ignore both its stars and its supporters, a strike can’t be ruled out, leading the mad dash for overseas dollars to seem like chump change lost in the sofa.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.llabtoofdlrowedisni@retsbew.kcin