It’s something that is very familiar for American sports fans: Your favorite team in your favorite sport is sent to play a regular season game abroad.
The NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL all regularly do this and, in some cases, are increasing the amount of games held overseas every year in an effort to expand the footprint of the sport, as well as for economic reasons.
Now, European soccer is joining America’s superpower sports in attempting to host fixtures beyond its native shores.
On Monday, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) officially gave its stamp of approval to a plan proposed by LaLiga to play a regular season match between FC Barcelona and Villarreal – which was originally scheduled to be played at the Estadio de la Cerámica in Villarreal on December 21 – at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.
The proposal now moves to European governing body UEFA and world governing body FIFA for the final authorization steps in what would be a groundbreaking game: the first ever European fixture to be played in the US.
In a similar move, the Italian Football Federation approved a regular season league match between AC Milan and Como to be played in Australia in February 2026, though the fixture is also pending official sign-off.
If the Spanish match is approved, the event would be a massive victory for LaLiga President Javier Tebas, who has been pushing for the match for years. Tebas argues that it would help the Spanish league stay competitive in a European landscape which increasingly sees the English Premier League earn more and more money, while its continental counterparts fall ever further behind.
“It’s not enough to show your matches on TV. The official match in the US will strengthen our position in the North American market,” Tebas told Spanish outlet Expansión in April 2024. “Other very competitive leagues are coming so we can’t just do the same thing we always do, they will pass us up.
“We have to do different things. … Having the match abroad is a very important strategic subject. We have to be in all those areas and if we’re not on an international level, we will lose a lot.”
In a recent interview with CNN Sports, Barcelona president Joan Laporta said that the club was excited about the opportunity to play overseas and agreed that promoting the league worldwide is important.
“For (Barça), it will be a great honor to participate in this event that will be an official game of LaLiga, but at the same time (it) will be a big event in the States,” he told Amanda Davies from the club’s preseason tour in Seoul, South Korea.
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<div class=”timestamp__published”>PUBLISHED Aug 14, 2025, 6:04 AM ET</div>
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“We are a club that belongs to LaLiga, and we are responsible because we want to commercialize LaLiga as best as possible.”
As for Villarreal, club president Fernando Roig said in a Tuesday press conference that he thought it was a “great idea,” adding that the match was for “the good of football, of Villarreal and of LaLiga.”
Financially, the move is reportedly significant for both clubs. According to Catalan radio outlet RAC1, Barcelona and Villarreal will each receive between €5 million ($5.85 million) and €6 million (about $7 million) for the match in Miami. Villarreal would receive slightly more to compensate for the loss of ticketing revenue for giving up a home match.
When reached by CNN Sports, Barcelona said, if the match were to take place, it doesn’t make contract details public.
CNN Sports has also reached out to LaLiga and Villarreal for confirmation of those figures.
Some fans also see the benefit of the proposal, with Borja Jiménez, president of Villarreal fan group “L’Os Groc,” calling it “exciting.”
“For a club like ours, I think it’s an opportunity to expose ourselves and give visibility for the team to a huge market like the American one,” Jiménez told CNN Sports. “In our fan group, we see it as a Spanish football festival in Miami and it will be pioneering.
“We hope to win there and make a lot of Americans fall in love with us and turn into ‘Yellow Submarine’ (Villarreal’s nickname) followers.”
There is also an emotional case for the match to be staged abroad. Soccer is the biggest sport in the world and fans no longer just support their local clubs – if they do exist.
Supporters from the US, Middle East, Africa and Asia travel thousands of miles and spend large amounts of money to watch their favorite European soccer teams play in person. Despite some arguing that you can’t cheer for a team unless you are from a certain city or country, fandom knows no bounds and any opportunity to spread the joy of the sport to other countries should arguably be celebrated.
Fans – and a giant – against the proposal
But not everyone is in favor of the move.
The Spanish Football Members and Supporters Federation (FASFE), along with a Villarreal fan group and a Barcelona supporters’ group, released a statement Monday declaring their “absolute, total and firm opposition to the delocalization of a match outside of Spain.”
“We think it’s shameful that attempts are being made to pervert our league by robbing it of its very purpose, which is none other than its fans,” the statement continued. “Football is, in greater ways and above all, a social and cultural event rather than a branch of the entertainment industry, and the desire to eradicate it from the community that created it and sustains it since its birth is an attack that we cannot ignore.”
Football Supporters Europe (FSE) echoed FASFE’s sentiments, saying it was “appalled” by attempts to hold league games abroad for “short-term commercial gain.” The proposal, it said, “strikes at the heart of the relationship between fans and their teams, breaking vital links between clubs and their communities.”
Barcelona told CNN Sports that it respects all opinions, but that it has no further comment unless the match is officially announced.
CNN Sports has also reached out to LaLiga and Villarreal for comment.
For its part, Villarreal has attempted to alleviate some of the financial burden for domestic fans by offering free airfare and tickets to the match in Miami to season ticket holders. Those who choose not to go will have a 20% discount on their season ticket for the 2025-26 campaign.
Jiménez told CNN Sports that he and several of his fellow “L’Os Groc” members intend to take the club up on the offer to go on a subsidized trip to Miami, adding they “hope to enjoy something different and unique as the first ones to experience a league match on American soil.”
However, it’s not just some fans who were and are against a match in the United States.
Resistance to the proposal from players and clubs began when the idea was first mooted by Tebas; in 2018, LaLiga announced it was planning to hold an official match in the US, but the proposal was quickly shut down.
Spanish league players at the time were “outraged” by the decision and threatened strike action. The previous proposal, which involved a game between Barça and fellow Catalan club Girona, was then shelved by the LaLiga boss.
Spanish Footballers’ Association (AFE) president David Aganzo said at the time that making the deal without consulting the players “show(ed) a lack of respect.”
“It’s not just the game as such, in terms of health and travel, it just makes no sense to have a game played in the United States and have one team have to give up a home game.
“It cannot be that a person takes a decision of a 15-year agreement, which affects many people and without consulting. We are fed up with not being valued.”
Fast-forward to today and the same concerns apply. On Tuesday, Spanish soccer giant Real Madrid expressed its anger at the proposal being pushed forward, saying it “firmly rejects” the idea of the Miami match due to competitive reasons and will ask FIFA, UEFA and the Spanish High Sports Council (CSD) to deny the request.
“The measure … 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,” Madrid said in its statement.
A trip to Villarreal’s La Cerámica stadium is traditionally looked upon as a tough away game for any team in the league, and that home advantage will be diminished by staging a game in Miami.
Real Madrid, for instance, has a worse record away to Villarreal since the 1998-99 season (10 wins, 11 draws and four losses) than at home at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu (17 wins, six draws and two losses).
Barcelona, however, has a strong away record against Villarreal. The clubs have met 50 times in the league since the 1998-99 season, and of the 25 matches played away at La Cerámica, Barça has 15 wins, five draws and five losses, tallying more league points away than at home.
The Blaugrana also haven’t lost away to Villarreal since the 2007-08 season and last dropped points on the road in the 2018-19 season.
But for Villarreal, a match away from La Cerámica is significant. The club’s record at home for the past 15 seasons is 148 wins, 76 draws and 63 losses for a total of 520 league points, while its away record lags far behind at 100 wins, 79 draws and 108 losses for a total of 379 league points – a difference of 141 points more at home, or 9.4 points per season.
The loss of a home match is of potentially huge impact to the team in terms of qualification for European competitions like the Champions League or the Europa League – which Villarreal won in the 2020-21 season.
Yet while resistance exists among some fans and teams, if one thing time has shown again and again in any sector of life – be that sports or otherwise – it is that economic interests usually win out, much to the dismay of many of the die-hard traditionalists who follow the “Beautiful Game.”