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LA LIGA OFFICIALLY ASKS TO HOLD BARCELONA LEAGUE MATCH IN US

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The plans to have the first LA Liga match in America is progressing as the Spanish League has officially asked the Spanish Football Federation for permission to play the fixture.

The match in question is a Catalan derby involving Girona and FC Barcelona. According to UK’s Daily Mail, the two clubs and La Liga are eager to see the match played on January 27 next year at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.

A request from La Liga was sent to the Federation on Monday according to statement issued on Tuesday by the Spanish top flight.

It read: ‘FC Barcelona, Girona FC and LaLiga have requested permission from the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) to stage the matchday 21 fixture between Girona and Barcelona, scheduled to be played on 26 January, at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium in a 20:45 CET kick-off.’

La Liga’s statement goes on to say that the request ‘comes after successfully completing the first key steps with several stakeholders’.

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La Liga also plan to speak to the US Soccer Federation, UEFA and CONCACAF.

The Spanish League’s plans to play a match stateside upset players, clubs and supporters in Spain but efforts have since been made to get the various parties onside.

President of La Liga Javier Tebas clarified last week that the league was not contractually ‘obliged’ to play a match in the United States despite having signed an agreement with sports and entertainment company Relevent.

He said the agreement merely rubber-stamped a commitment to pursue a broad joint venture that included many components, including an on-going attempt to organise a Liga game abroad.

Girona also attempted to win over disgruntled fans upset at missing out on the possibility of seeing Barcelona in their stadium. The club expressed its intention to fly 1,500 supporters to Miami for free so they could watch the match.

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Girona plan to ask for a returnable €500 (£445) deposit from supporters who want to take them up on their offer. Fans can also pay an extra €600 (£534) to stay overnight in Miami.

Supporters with season tickets who do not want to go to Miami will be able to obtain one of 5,000 tickets for the Barcelona v Girona game to be played at the Camp Nou on September 23 plus 20 per cent back on their season tickets.

Barcelona-based Sports paper Diario Sport recently speculated that Girona could earn up to €4m(£3.6m) by playing the game in Miami.

And the Spanish players union AFE, who originally hinted at strike action over the plans, had a meeting with Tebas on Monday which set out proposals for out of contract Spanish players to have fully-paid-for trials in the US.

This olive branch appears to have appeased AFE who are no longer considering going on strike if the US game goes ahead.

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One of the last hurdles for the Spanish League will be to obtain the permission of RFEF and this formal request has been issued in the hope of achieving that. RFEF president Luis Rubiales has hinted in the past that he is against the idea.

He told Sportsmail in an interview last week: ‘I have not seen the contract [between La Liga and Relevent] so I can’t say much but I will say that FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, wants to protect the domestic competitions in each country and taking league games somewhere else is to invade that country.

‘A friendly is not the same as a game in the domestic competition. And you can’t make a decision like this without consulting the Federation or the footballers. He has bypassed everyone.’

With the sending of a formal request that is no longer the case and it is now up to RFEF to respond the proposal.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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