Ernesto Valverde on Lopetegui’s comments: “It’s still a long way”

Valverde on Lopetegui’s comments: Barcelona manager has replied to Julen Lopetegui’s statement about La Liga outside Spain.

Julen Lopetegui has criticised the idea of organising La Liga games outside Spain. The Real Madrid manager insisted that it would ‘corrupt the equality of the competition’ to organise selected matches outside Spain.

“All the teams should be play in the same grounds, that is why the league system is so effective and why it is fair and equal,” Lopetegui said.

“I am not a supporter of the idea at all, for me it is not right and I believe it corrupts the equality of the competition,” the Spanish manager added.

Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde was quizzed on his reaction to Lopetegui’s comments in the pre-match conference, before their trip to Real Sociedad. Barcelona are speculated to play the first-ever La Liga match in the United States against Girona.

“Considering it’s been talked about for 2-3 weeks, it’ll be incredible if we keep talking about it at this rate,” Valverde said.

“We’ll see how it goes, but it’s still very far away. It’s very good that we’re making a big deal out of it, but there’s still a long way to go. Every day a new piece of news comes out, but I have the impression that it’s not been decided yet,” the Barcelona manager stated.

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“Once we have clarity, we’ll make the relevant judgments. I know that it’s been talked about with the players, but I’ll say again: it’s still far away.”

Barcelona will play against Real Sociedad in their fourth La Liga match of the season, while Real Madrid will take on Athletic Bilbao. Both the teams are first and second respectively in the La Liga table, and are yet to drop a point in the campaign so far.