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Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong has voiced his opposition to the announcement that the Catalan side’s LaLiga game against Villarreal in December will be played in Miami.
LaLiga confirmed on Wednesday that the league fixture, supposed to be played at Villarreal’s Estadio de la Cerámica, will be moved to the Hard Rock Stadium after UEFA’s announcement earlier this week that they had reluctantly approved the request.
De Jong is against more travel being squeezed into a packed schedule, while he also understands complaints from opposition teams that it will distort the competition.
“I don’t like it,” he said at a news conference while on international duty with the Netherlands.
“I can understand the clubs financially, they will of course profit from it, and they can spread their brand further across the world. But I wouldn’t do it.
“It’s not good for the players. You have to travel a lot. It’s also not fair in terms of competition. For us, it’s now an away match on neutral ground. I totally understand if other clubs aren’t happy about that.”
Real Madrid are among the LaLiga clubs to have criticised the decision to take a game to the United States, saying it will “give an undue sporting advantage” to the teams involved and “sets an unacceptable precedent.”
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LaLiga have been trying to relocate a game to the U.S. since 2017, but plans accelerated in August when they finally received approval from the Royal Spanish Football Federation [RFEF], who had previously blocked the plans despite staging the Spanish Supercopa in Saudi Arabia themselves.
Earlier this week, European football governing body UEFA then said it had approved two requests for games to be played on foreign soil, the other from Italian sides Milan and Como to play in Perth, Australia, in February.
UEFA said it was in “clear opposition” to the idea of playing domestic league games outside of their native countries but cited FIFA’s vague framework and regulations when confirming it had accepted the proposals “exceptionally.”
FIFA have put together a working group to review those regulations moving forward.
LaLiga president Javier Tebas, meanwhile, says the plan is for one league game to be taken abroad each season, and not just to the U.S.
Barça’s game against Villarreal is set to be the first game from Europe’s big five leagues played on foreign soil, copying a model implemented by American leagues such as the NFL and the NBA in recent years.
