Overseas games: Will World Cup success force Fifa’s hand over divisive issue?
Fifa’s staging of the World Cup in North America may have been a massive commercial win, but it might also have ramped up the pressure on world football’s governing body to make a decisive call on one of the game’s most contentious issues: domestic leagues taking matches to more lucrative overseas locations.
The biggest ever men’s World Cup smashed attendance records, with 6.8m people attending games at the first 48-team edition of the tournament. Stadiums operated at 99.7 per cent capacity, according to official figures, ticket and hospitality sales generated $3bn, and a further 5.5m attended Fifa’s fan festivals. If any further proof was needed that the most mature sports market on the planet is ready to embrace elite football, this was surely it.
None of this will have gone unnoticed in Europe, where some leagues and clubs – notably in Spain and Italy – have been keen to export their product in the name of promoting their brands and creating a virtuous cycle of more eyeballs and greater media revenues. Their attempts have until now been thwarted but resistance, not least from Fifa, is weakening.
“I think the one thing the World Cup has again shown is that American fans will watch and pay for and consume top-tier football,” Adam Dale, a sports lawyer in New York with global firm Winston Taylor, tells City PM.
“We see that as [Lionel] Messi makes his rounds in MLS, suddenly stadiums are full. I think it’s because we’re spoiled by the other leagues, right? There’s really no debate that the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL are the top-tier leagues in the world.
“MLS isn’t there, and I don’t know that they ever will be. But it is more of a reason why it makes sense in my mind that some of the top leagues in Europe would want to visit the US in the same way that the NFL plays a few games a year in the UK and the rest of Europe, and one in Mexico. The same way baseball moves around a little bit, basketball moves around a little bit. There’s a desire for it, and I think the World Cup has proven that.”
Why Fifa’s opposition to oversea games cannot hold
Fifa’s outright refusal to sanction overseas games was broken in 2023 following a long-running antitrust case brought by marketing agency Relevent, which has staged pre-season matches for European clubs in the US and has a long-term deal to help Spain’s LaLiga break America.
Fifa, along with co-defendant US Soccer, agreed to settle with Relevent and convene a working group to examine conditions under which overseas games might be permitted. Two years on, the group is yet to report its recommendations but appetite to arrange them has not diminished.
LaLiga and Italy’s Serie A both scheduled overseas games last season, in the US and Australia respectively. European governing body Uefa sanctioned them, making clear it did so reluctantly and only because Fifa’s rulebook gave it insufficient legal grounds on which to block them, although the wrangling and blowback eventually saw the plans cancelled – for now.
Fifa’s working group has discussed permitting leagues a maximum of one overseas game and limiting countries like the US to hosting five visiting fixtures per season, as first reported by the Guardian. Any recommendations must be approved by the Fifa Council but the success of the World Cup has likely only made agitators like LaLiga boss Javier Tebas more determined to strike while the iron is hot.
Inevitable – but not for the Premier League
“I do think it is inevitable that they will be allowed,” says Dale, who represented Relevent in its antitrust case with Fifa but is not permitted to discuss the specifics. “Whether leagues, federations and players ultimately decide that it’s something they’d like to do is a different question. But currently it’s not permitted and I think there will be an opening of the door.”
LaLiga and Serie A are considered most eager to take games overseas, with France’s Ligue 1 perhaps next in line, insiders say. The Premier League, burned by its floating of a similar plan – the 39th game – almost 20 years ago, has no need to risk the reputational collateral damage when it is already by far the richest domestic league in world football. Bundesliga would likely face a huge backlash from Germany’s highly mobilised fanbases if it pursued the plan.
Ultimately then, it seems only Fifa can stop overseas games – but for how long? Even allowing for its sometimes unilateral decision-making, the success of its flagship tournament has only made US ground more fertile for European leagues and clubs, who have shown how determined they are to pursue their American dream.
“Fifa’s Fifa, they could do whatever they want. They’ll find a clause,” says Dale, when asked if the door to overseas games could be closed again. “I think it would be a very very poor decision, both legally and from a public relations perspective, for Fifa to do that.”