AS A NEW season of English top-flight football kicks off this weekend, the idea of league games being played abroad reared its head once again, and could soon become a reality for teams in Spain.

The turn of phrase “the game’s gone” is regularly heard in football, usually uttered when something new and unsavoury is introduced that goes against the sport’s traditions. It can range from a tongue-in-cheek response to new tactics or innovations within the game, to more serious issues related to the game’s governance, its transformation into a TV product at the top level, or its treatment of supporters as customers rather than as an integral part of their clubs.

When the Spanish top division, La Liga, announced last week its intention to play a 2025/26 league fixture involving Villarreal and Barcelona in Miami, that game, for supporters of the home team especially, is quite literally gone.

Instead of being played at Villarreal’s Estadio de la Ceramica, there is a proposal to play the game at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. It has been approved by the Spanish FA, who have now submitted a request to Uefa and, by extension, Fifa.

Many of those involved in this move have, in typically blinkered fashion, looked at this solely in financial terms.

Barcelona-based radio station RAC1 reported that Barcelona would receive around €5m while Villarreal would get around €6m, an extra €1m to make up for the fact that Villarreal will miss out on a home game and the income that brings.

Villarreal president Fernando Roig says the club will pay for supporters’s travel, and commented that the main benefit will not be the match fee, but the expansion of the club’s brand.

“The whole economic arrangement will be dedicated to compensating fans,” Fernando Roig said. “What the club gains here is the expansion of the brand, of the sponsors, and to look to the future of opening up to the market.”

Looking at it solely in monetary terms ignores the sporting aspect and the importance of a home game to Villarreal, or any team, and its supporters.

Home advantage has always existed in football. Research has been carried out and studies have been done on what causes it, but part of it is always linked to familiar surroundings, home support, and expectation.

Moving a Villarreal game abroad erases their home advantage, no matter how many supporters the club convinces to travel with them. Barcelona will be the big draw in Miami, where their iconic former player Lionel Messi currently plays his club football for Inter Miami in nearby Fort Lauderdale.

Not only would Villarreal be losing their home advantage, but Barcelona would be losing their disadvantage as an away team. The support the Catalan club would get in Miami would make this closer to a home game for them, and in leagues that are built on the idea of home and away matches against each team, this affects the integrity of not just one match, but the whole league.

It’s no surprise, then, that Barcelona’s rivals, Real Madrid, have strongly opposed this move. 

“Real Madrid would like to make it clear to its members, supporters, and football fans in general that it firmly rejects the proposal to play the [La Liga] match between Villarreal and Barcelona on matchday 17 outside Spain,” the club said in a statement.

“The measure, which was taken without prior information or consultation of the clubs participating in the competition, infringes the essential principle of territorial reciprocity, which applies in two-legged league competitions (one match at home and the other at the home of the opposing team), upsetting the competitive balance and giving an undue sporting advantage to the applicant clubs.

“The integrity of the competition requires that all matches take place under the same conditions for all teams. Unilaterally modifying this regime breaks the equality between contenders, compromises the legitimacy of the results, and sets an unacceptable precedent that opens the door to exceptions based on non-sporting interests, clearly affecting sporting integrity and risking the adulteration of the competition. 

“If this proposal were to be carried out, its consequences would be so serious that it would be a turning point in the world of football.”

That last sentence may sound dramatic, but it’s true. The majority of clubs in world football emerged from a locality and are linked to it. A sports club is not a club without its links to place, to community, and its club members, ie, supporters, players, and staff.

Playing a game in Miami adds to the growing trend of football matches being played in the United States.

As well as numerous pre-season friendlies, the US has hosted the Club World Cup and the Copa America in recent years, and is a co-host of the 2026 World Cup.

Its lack of regulations around ticket re-selling and dynamic pricing, and general acceptance of higher ticket prices, make it an attractive location for those looking to use football solely to make money.

As a club from a small town on Spain’s east coast, Villarreal see this as an opportunity to help them better compete with the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid by growing its fan base in other areas. 

One fan group has recognised this as a positive. Borja Jimenez, president of Madrid-based Villarreal fan group L’Os Groc, told CNN: “For a club like ours, I think it’s an opportunity to expose ourselves and give visibility for the team to a huge market in America. In our fan group, we see it as a Spanish football festival in Miami, and it will be pioneering.”

Others have pushed back. The FASFE, a group representing Spanish football fans and members (socios), including fan representatives from Villarreal and Barcelona, said: “We think it’s shameful that attempts are being made to corrupt our league by robbing it of its very purpose, which is none other than its fans.

“Football is, above all, a social and cultural event rather than a branch of the entertainment industry. 

“The desire to eradicate it from the community that created it and sustained it since its birth is an attack that we cannot ignore.”

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has said there are no plans to play English league games abroad, but once this happens in La Liga, the Premier League will not want to be seen to be left behind.

If and when that occurs, the game will be gone in England as it might soon be in Spain.