The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) has told ESPN FC that it turned down an offer from Relevent Sports for the 2019 Spanish Supercup to be played in the United States, but a source has claimed the RFEF approached Relevent first.
Relevent, the organiser of the International Champions Cup, signed a 15-year agreement with La Liga in August, with its plans including a regular season La Liga game being played in North America from this season.
La Liga chose Girona’s home game against Barcelona in January to be played in Miami but the RFEF and FIFA have opposed the idea.
“An offer arrived from Relevent to stage the [Spanish Supercup] game in the United States, and it was rejected,” the RFEF told ESPN FC.
It did not reveal why the offer was turned down or add whether it had received any further proposals to stage the game, between the winners of La Liga and the Copa del Rey champions, overseas.
A Relevent source, however, told ESPN FC that the RFEF had made the first contact, saying: “It was the Spanish FA that approached Relevent with a view to staging the Supercup in the United States.
“Negotiations started around Oct. 1 and continued over the course of a month. We made a generous offer, but it wasn’t enough for them and they rejected it.”
Earlier this week, Tebas said it was “scandalous to offer the Spanish Super Cup in the U.S. to the same organisation that has a partnership with La Liga while telling La Liga it can’t stage a match stateside.”
He added: “It’s clear that there is an inherent problem with a process when the federation deciding on approval is negotiating a similar deal concurrently.
“When it comes to the La Liga match in the U.S. decisions and opinions by the governing bodies haven’t been based on what’s in the best interest of football globally, but how it impacts self-interests and leverages business negotiations on unrelated matters.”
The Spanish Supercup was played abroad for the first time this year, taking place in Morocco as a single game rather than the two-legged match played since the competition’s creation in 1982.
Barcelona beat Sevilla 2-1 in Tangier in what is considered the traditional curtain raiser to the season.
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