Miami’s possible College Football Playoff schedule may clash with La Liga match at Hard Rock Stadium

MIAMI GARDENS Fla AP A expected stadium conflict could exist if the Miami Hurricanes host a first-round match in this year s College Football Playoff with a Spanish league soccer challenge set to be played at Hard Rock Stadium in that same window La Liga is sending Barcelona and Villarreal to play in Miami Gardens on Dec on the same field the Hurricanes call home The CFP schedule calls for one first-round event to be played on Dec and three on Dec If Miami is somewhere between No and No in the final CFP rankings and at this point that would seem to be a very real possibility the Hurricanes would be in line to host a battle on one of those two December dates Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich disclosed Friday that talks are ongoing to find a approach ESPN announced Sunday that College Football Playoff representatives also are involved in trying to figure out what may have to happen ESPN would be involved in any scheduling changes because it holds the CFP broadcast rights The contingency options would figure to include entirely adjusting the CFP schedule moving games by a day or finding an alternate site if the Hurricanes need one If games are moved on the calendar it wouldn t be much of a competitive advantage or disadvantage in terms of preparation time winners of first-round games would not play again until Dec or Jan It s also achievable that the soccer tournament if it was to start in the morning on Dec could be played in advance of a football championship on the same field that night though such a plan would require countless logistical issues to be addressed No matter what happens the situation is creating headaches on two continents Spanish players are clearly unhappy about the idea of sending league matches overseas and protested the move this weekend by standing still for the first seconds of matches A large number of of those protests were not shown on television broadcasts The union that represents La Liga players organized the protests which it commented were in response to a lack of transparency dialogue and coherence of La Liga regarding the possibility of playing a competition in the United States La Liga s stance is that playing the meeting in Miami Gardens which has a large Spanish-speaking population and will play host to particular World Cup matches when soccer s biggest event comes to the U S Mexico and Canada next year is solely good for business Soccer has a huge following in South Florida one that has only grown since Lionel Messi joined Inter Miami and entered Major League Soccer in Using Inter Miami s stadium as a fallback wouldn t figure to appeal to La Liga Hard Rock Stadium can hold about for soccer matches while Inter Miami s stadium in Fort Lauderdale can hold about one-third that multiple people