Fifa moves towards ending decades of football tradition and letting league games be staged in other countries
- New policy will be attractive to the international owners of European clubs, including US investors and state-backed teams
- Football’s governing body also finally set a date to play the first Women’s Club World Cup in January and February 2026
Fifa moved on Wednesday towards ending decades of football tradition by reviewing the rules that currently block domestic league games being played in other countries.
Fans are likely to object to their teams’ home matches potentially being moved thousands of kilometres away.
The United States and Saudi Arabia are expected to be willing hosts to lure competitive games from top European countries, and Fifa recently agreed to withdraw from an ongoing court case in New York filed by promoter Relevent to challenge the policy.
The new Fifa policy will probably be attractive to the growing number of international owners of European clubs, including the wave of US investors in the English Premier League, Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1, and state-backed teams such as Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City, Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain and Saudi-owned Newcastle.
Fifa is now creating a panel of 10-15 people representing football stakeholders to advise within months on amending the rules on so-called “out-of-territory” games. The rules were last amended in 2014.
Attempts since then to have European league games abroad, including taking Barcelona to Miami in 2019, were blocked as US promoters seek to give fans more than just preseason exhibition games involving the world’s best club teams.
