Spain's players' association says it will have the final say on whether La Liga will play a regular-season match in the United States this season.
The announcement was made after a meeting of more than two hours with league president Javier Tebas in Madrid on Monday.
La Liga wants to take the Girona vs. Barcelona game to the U.S. in January as part of its efforts to promote soccer and the league in North America. But the association has been against the plan, saying players should have been consulted about the idea in advance.
The association said the league has promised to provide a detailed description of the plans to play the game abroad, and that it will then make a decision with the players' interests in mind.
Players a few weeks ago threatened a strike in case the idea of the game was not properly discussed.
Barcelona midfielder Sergio Busquets said Monday that players had not made up their minds about the game yet.
"We are seeking the best solution for players, fans and football," he said during a news conference with Spain's national team.
The league has made it clear the match is not mandatory, but is an opportunity for clubs wanting to make the trip across the Atlantic. La Liga and the clubs are expected to seek approval from Spain's soccer federation in the next few days.
Small Catalan club Girona — in its second season in the top tier — last week said it was willing play the game because it saw it as a "great opportunity for expansion" for the club and the city, which has a population of about 100,000 people and is located a little over an hour's drive away from Barcelona in northeastern Spain.
Girona said one of the issues being discussed was how to compensate the club's fans as the team would be giving up a home game. Spanish media said one of the plans was to charter planes so Girona fans could make the trip to the U.S. and watch the game.
The league last month announced its plan to play in the U.S. as part of a new 15-year partnership with sports and entertainment group Relevent, which operates the International Champions Cup, a tournament played across the globe during the European offseason in July and August.
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CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — Swiss investigators believe sparkling flares atop Champagne bottles started a fire in a bar at an Alpine ski resort that left 40 people dead and another 119 injured during a New Year’s celebration.
Most injuries, many of them serious, occurred when the blaze swept through the crowded bar in southwestern Switzerland in the early hours of Thursday.
The Crans-Montana resort is best known as an international ski and golf venue. Overnight, the Le Constellation bar morphed from a scene of revelry into the site of one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.
Here’s what we know:
The blaze broke out around 1:30 a.m. Thursday during a holiday celebration inside the Le Constellation bar.
Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female colleague on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.
People tried to escape from a nightclub area in the basement, up a flight of stairs and through a narrow door, causing a crowd surge, one of the women said.
A young man at the scene said people smashed windows to escape, reported BFMTV. He said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames.
Gianni Campolo, a Swiss 19-year-old who was in Crans-Montana on vacation, rushed to help first responders after receiving a call from a friend who escaped the inferno. He described a scene of people trapped on the ground, severely injured and burned.
“I have seen horror and I don’t know what else would be worse than this,” Campolo told French broadcaster TF1.
Swiss officials described the blaze as a likely flashover, meaning that it triggered the release of combustible gases that can then ignite violently.
The injured suffered from serious burns and smoke inhalation. Some were flown to specialist hospitals across the country and elsewhere in Europe.
Authorities urged people to show caution in the coming days to avoid any incidents that could require the already overwhelmed medical resources.
Out of the 119 injured, 113 have now been identified, officials said Friday.
The severity of the burns has made it very difficult to identify bodies, bringing fresh agony for families who now must hand over DNA samples to authorities. In some cases, wallets and any ID documents inside turned to ash in the flames.
Emanuele Galeppini, a promising 17-year-old Italian golfer who competed internationally, is officially listed as one of Italy’s missing nationals. His uncle Sebastiano Galeppini told Italian news agency ANSA that their family is awaiting the DNA checks, though the Italian Golf Federation on its website announced that he had died.
Italy's foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said that 13 Italian citizens were injured and six remained missing by midday Friday. Galeppini’s name was on the missing persons list.
France's foreign ministry said eight French people are missing and another nine are among the injured. Top-flight French soccer team FC Metz said one of its trainee players, 19-year-old Tahirys Dos Santos, was badly burned and has been transferred by plane to Germany for treatment.
On Instagram, an account filled up with photos of people who remained unaccounted for, with their friends and relatives begging for tips about the whereabouts of the missing.
The injured include 71 Swiss nationals, 14 French and 11 Italians, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland, Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said Friday. The nationalities of 14 people remain unclear.
The nearby regional hospital in Sion took in a flood of victims from the fire. Its general director, Eric Bonvin, recounted how staff scrambled to determine the extent of people’s injuries.
The hospital — in the heart of the Alps and no stranger to winter sports accidents — was well staffed for the end of the year, when crowds flock to the mountains. On top of that, many colleagues who had not been scheduled to work rushed in to lend a hand.
Still the hospital, which is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the resort by air, quickly hit full capacity, authorities said, taking in about 80 seriously injured people in just three hours.
As of Friday, the hospital still had about 30 seriously injured patients in its care.
With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 meters (nearly 9,850 feet) in the heart of the Valais region’s snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup circuit.
The resort will host the best men’s and women’s downhill racers, including Lindsey Vonn, for their final events before the Milan Cortina Olympics in February.
The town’s Crans-sur-Sierre golf club, down the street from the bar, stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course.
Dazio reported from Berlin and Leicester reported from Sion, Switzerland. Geir Moulson in Berlin, Graham Dunbar in Geneva and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
A police officer helps a boy to light a candle near the sealed off Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
