La Liga cancels Villarreal v Barcelona in Miami

La Liga has cancelled plans to hold a regular-season match between Villarreal and Barcelona in Miami in December.

In August, the Spanish football federation (RFEF) approved plans to move Villarreal's fixture against Barcelona to Hard Rock Stadium on 20 December - a decision that sparked discontent in Spain.

The plans to hold a top-flight game outside Spain for the first time faced a huge backlash, with players refusing to move for the first 15 seconds of matches in La Liga at the weekend.

Promoters of the match, Relevent, state the reason for the cancellation is because of "insufficient time" to organise the event, with La Liga also citing the "uncertainty in Spain".

The match will now be held at Villarreal's Estadio de la Ceramica home as originally scheduled.

The decision to cancel the match in Miami was announced during Villarreal's 2-0 Champions League defeat at home by Manchester City.

Afterwards, Villarreal boss Marcelino said it showed "absolute disrespect" to communicate this decision while his side were playing.

He added: "It is absolutely disrespectful to the club, professionals and board of directors and fans. From here onwards, the club will send an official communication but this is just what I think."

La Liga said it "deeply regrets" the postponement and described it as a blow to the "international profile of the entire football ecosystem".

La Liga also believed staging an official match outside Spain would have been a "decisive step in the global expansion" of its competition, and that "passing up such opportunities makes it difficult to generate new revenue".

It would have been the first time a European top-flight league match had taken place in the United States, although the Spanish Super Cup has been held in Saudi Arabia in four of the past five seasons.

After the Miami game was originally confirmed, the Italian football federation (FIGC) decided to sanction a Serie A match between AC Milan and Como to be played in Perth, Australia, in February.

Barcelona said it "respects and accepts" the decision to cancel the match and "regrets the missed opportunity to expand the competition's image" in a market that has a "great capactiy for growth and generation of resources for everyone".

The club added it "regrets deeply" that its fans in the USA "are denied the opportunity to see an official game in their country".

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick had previously said his "players are not happy" and he was "not happy" but "La Liga decided that we will play this game".

Despite the match being cancelled, Spanish football expert Guillem Balague does not think this is the end of the story.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live: "Whilst Javier Tebas is the head of La Liga, he will try to get one game away.

"He thinks that it's a project, as the statement says, aimed at enhancing the visibility of Spanish football.

"It complied fully with federation regulations. The position on the project was just for reasons unrelated to regulatory or sporting integrity."

Balague believes finances were the main reason behind the cancellation of the match.

"Perhaps there wasn't enough money, perhaps the money wasn't clear where it was going, but certainly it's been a lot of confusion," he added.

"Villarreal were saying, 'We're not getting any money for it', but Barcelona were saying, 'As soon as we get into the plane, we will get money'.

"It wasn't clear how Villarreal had promised about 5,000 of their fans would go to Miami, or how that was going to happen."