UEFA have delayed a decision on whether to give their approval to the staging of regular-season league matches outside Europe.
Spain’s La Liga wants to stage December’s fixture between Villarreal and Barcelona in Miami, Florida, while Italy’s Serie A is hopeful of playing February’s meeting between Milan and Como in Perth, Australia. No European regular-season game has previously been staged abroad.
The Executive Committee of European football’s governing body met on Thursday to discuss the requests from the Spanish and Italian federations, but said they wished to “ensure that it has the views of all stakeholders before coming to a final decision”.
UEFA said that stakeholders that would be taken into consideration would include supporters.
“There are many issues to resolve and as the European governing body, UEFA has a responsibility to take all such factors into account,” UEFA added.
Football Supporters Europe (FSE) said they “welcomed” UEFA’s decision, saying that it reflected their desire of “preserving the integrity of European football”.
“UEFA has recognised the strong opposition expressed by millions of supporters across the continent, as well as those of the many other stakeholders who have spoken out against these plans,” FSE said.
“FSE would like to thank every supporters group across Europe who co-signed our statement opposing these proposals — your voice has made a real difference.
“Our position remains unchanged: European football belongs to our stadiums, our cities, our communities — one domestic match abroad is one too many.”
Despite the delay on a final decision, La Liga remain optimistic that Villarreal’s scheduled match against Barcelona in December will be given the green light to be staged in the U.S..
Last month, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) approved the proposal to stage the Spanish top-flight game at the Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens and would subsequently submit a request to UEFA who would initiate the procedures for FIFA to grant authorisation for the fixture change.
It comes after UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin told Politico that European football’s governing body were “not happy” with the idea of playing games abroad.
“Football should be played in Europe, fans should watch football at home, they cannot travel to Australia or the U.S. to watch their teams,” Ceferin said. “We will open this discussion also with FIFA, and with all the federations, because I don’t think it’s a good thing.”
When asked if he hoped matches would be stopped from being moved abroad in the future, Ceferin said: “Yeah, at least that we can decide only in cases where there’s absolutely no other option.”
Glen Micallef, European Commissioner for Sport, has previously said he is “deeply disappointed” by the proposals to stage games abroad, describing them as a “betrayal” to community-based football clubs.
Regular-season league matches were previously forbidden from being held abroad, but in April Relevent Sports settled a six-year long lawsuit with the U.S Soccer Federation to try, paving the way for European domestic games to be moved.
In May 2024, FIFA approved a working group to look into potential changes to its rules after world football’s governing body was dropped as a defendant by Relevent.
Earlier this month, the German Football League (DFL) ruled out moving any of its games.
“As long as I am here in the league responsible, there will be no match abroad, when it comes to competitive matches. Full stop,” said Hans-Joachim Watzke, chairman of the DFL supervisory board.
The Premier League considered playing a round of games known as the ‘39th game’ outside of the United Kingdom 17 years ago but faced huge backlash from supporters and opposition from FIFA.
