La Liga president Javier Tebas has blasted Real Madrid for hosting an NFL game at the Santiago Bernabeu. He recently accused the club of hypocrisy after leading the protest against Barcelona’s proposed league fixture against Villarreal in Miami.
According to him, he does not understand how Real Madrid were vocal against the idea when Barcelona attempted it, only to welcome the NFL to their iconic stadium.
Tebas added that it is now clear that the backlash against the Miami match had little to do with tradition or competitive integrity, but rather Madrid’s desire for power and control.
His words, “We’ve been hearing for weeks that today is a historic day for Spanish sport because the NFL is playing in Madrid. Front pages, specials, red carpet… fantastic promotion for the NFL in Spain, with a Spanish stadium as the showcase.
And the most striking thing: the stadium belongs to the same club that led the crusade of ‘integrity’ against LaLiga’s official match in Miami… and that now lends it gladly, prior payment of course.
Back then they had players and bootlickers repeating the same narrative, with identical expressions of competition adulteration, they sent letters to every possible institution, they only lacked complaining to the Pope, while the European Commissioner for Sport waved the flag of “tradition” and the AFE filled their mouths with “information” and “transparency,” when they were perfectly informed about how the match was going to be organised and that the regulations would be respected.
The Miami match had guaranteed full capacity, an agenda of events equal to or greater than these days, and it served to internationalize our competition. We were talking about 1 match out of the 380 that LaLiga plays throughout the season.
It’s clear that back then intoxication and lack of forward-thinking vision won. The problem wasn’t integrity, nor tradition, nor information: the problem was who was driving it.
It was driven by LaLiga, an institution that everyone wants to control: some so that it doesn’t grow and thus have an easier path for their mega competitions, others to “scrape” more money, and others to fuel their political campaigns.”
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