The European soccer league pushing to play games in the United States

For the first time in history, we could see a major European league play a regular season game in the United States.

There has been talk of the Premier League and LaLiga playing games in the US but it looks like Italy’s Serie A is now in pole position to become the first. The news follows comments made by Italian league president Ezio Simonelli earlier this week.

“Holding a game abroad also requires authorization by the local league so we need to make an agreement in that regard. But we are considering timeframes that would work for this. We want to be the first league to set up an event like this in the United States,” Simonelli explained.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in American involvement in Serie A. USMNT stars Christian Pulisic (Milan), Weston McKennie (Juventus) and Timothy Weah (Juventus) all play in Italy, while eight top tier teams have American owners (Atalanta, Fiorentina, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Parma, Roma, Venezia and Hellas Verona).

Can Serie A games be played in the States?

Simonelli’s comments came after a significant court settlement that could pave the way for games to be played overseas. For years, FIFA has been engaged in a legal battle with Relevent, a company owned by Miami Dolphins' owner Stephen Ross.

Relevent had lodged an antitrust lawsuit against FIFA and soccer’s governing body has since stated that it will reconsider the statute preventing games being played overseas. There has not yet been any change of policy from FIFA, but this does represent a real softening of the stance. If the rules do change, Serie A may not be the only only looking to play games in overseas markets.

“All the different leagues are discussing the possibility of playing a regular-season game [abroad],” Serie A’s commercial and marketing director Michele Ciccarese explained. “If you look at the NFL, they’re playing in Germany, they’re playing in London, they are going to play in Australia.”

Ciccarese continued: “I would say that it’s up to us to put together the piece of the puzzle and present a proper strategy to the authorities. This is what we are doing, and who knows, maybe in a window of one to two years, we will see the league playing if the approvals come."

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