October 7 – UEFA has begrudgingly given LaLiga and Serie A the greenlight to play two regular season games in the USA and Australia. UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin said its decision was “regrettable”, “exceptional” and should “not be seen as setting a precedent”.
Villarreal’s home match against Barcelona in LaLiga will be moved from the Estadio de la Ceramica to the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami and will be played December 21. The Hard Rock Stadium will host seven matches at the 2026 World Cup.
In February AC Milan’s Serie A match against Como will be played in Perth, Australia.
Despite giving clearance to go-ahead with the games, UEFA said it “reiterated its clear opposition to domestic league matches being played outside their home country”.
“League matches should be played on home soil; anything else would disenfranchise loyal match-going fans and potentially introduce distortive elements in competitions. Our consultation confirmed the breadth of these concerns. I would like to thank the 55 national associations for their constructive and responsible engagement on such a sensitive issue,” said Čeferin.
“While it is regrettable to have to let these two games go ahead, this decision is exceptional and shall not be seen as setting a precedent. Our commitment is clear: to protect the integrity of national leagues and ensure that football remains anchored in its home environment.”
Before issuing its decision UEFA said it “undertook consultations with stakeholders to assess the extent of the implications of the issue”, confirming that there was a widespread lack of support “that had already been raised by fans, other leagues, clubs, players and European institutions around the concept of domestic league matches being relocated abroad.”
UEFA said that with the regulatory framework dealing with playing games overseas is currently under review by FIFA following successful challenges by promoter Relevent Sports in the US.
Because the regulation is current “not clear and detailed enough”, UEFA’s executive committee felt they had little option but to approve the requests on an “exceptional” basis.
For Relevent it is a significant win after years of attempting to get league matches played in the US. In 2019, Relevent tried to schedule Barcelona against Girona in Miami and in 2022 it tried again to get Barça against Atletico Madrid in Miami.
For UEFA there is an uncomfortable irony in that Relevent is now UEFA’s commercial partner for the Champions League, having ousted long term incumbent TEAM Marketing which has two seasons left of fulfillment of its contract before handing everything over to Relevent.
The partnership with Relevent came about through UEFA’s new and closer commercial relationship with the European Club Association (ECA) and its increasingly all-powerful chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi who spent much of the summer hobnobbing with FIFA President Gianni Infantino at the Club World Cup.
The potential conflicts of interest for Relevent in particular are glaringly obvious, and for Qatari Al-Khelaifi there appears to be no barrier to his growing influence on the sport.
Whether Relevent’s staging of games in the US creates a breach of its contract that UEFA would be prepared to act on is unclear.
Certainly as unpopular ideas go, the moving of the games overseas has angered many, not least the domestic fans of the clubs involved.
Football Supporters Europe (FSE) said the decision to play overseas could cause “long-lasting harm” and has called for “solid regulatory framework” to protect domestic competitions (presumably from themselves as it was the domestic leagues that promoted playing abroad).
“FSE will continue to stand firmly with fans in Spain and Italy in resisting these damaging proposals,” it said.
“Together with our members in these countries, we are looking into every possible option to counter these plans. By forcing through these matches, La Liga and Serie A risk undermining their own history and long-term success while inflicting long-lasting harm to football in Europe – and beyond.”
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