On December 20, Villarreal will play on "home ground" against Barcelona in Miami, USA.
A decision that has made the Spanish football players' association AFE react. Ahead of the weekend's round, the association announced that players would refuse to play during the first 15 seconds after the referee blew the start of the match. A move that got the league leadership to act, writes The Athletic.
In two matches (Oviedo–Espanyol and Barcelona–Girona) the TV cameras only showed the outside of the arena during the protest. In other matches, a drone camera zoomed in on the center circle instead of showing the players.
Only the TV broadcast between Elche and Athletic Bilbao showed all 22 players during the first 15 seconds.
AFE states that the protests have support from the captains of the Spanish top league and are a "symbolic protest against La Liga's lack of transparency, dialogue and consistency" on the issue of playing a match abroad.
The President of the European Football Association (Uefa), Aleksander Ceferin, has previously said that he believes the move of matches abroad can harm football, but that the regulations "are not clear and detailed enough" to stop it.