The Serie A commercial and marketing director Michele Ciccarese says the Italian top flight is seeking to bring regular-season matches to the United States, outlining an ambition to do so within three years.
During an interview with journalists, including The Athletic, an event at Serie A’s offices in New York City, Ciccarese discussed Italian football’s aims to expand its international presence.
Ciccarese, who was standing next to Serie A president Ezio Simonelli, said: “All the different leagues are discussing the possibility of playing a regular-season game (abroad). If you look at the NFL, they’re playing in Germany, they’re playing in London, they are going to play in Australia. So there are a lot of things happening that make the possibility (more real).”
He added it was about bringing an international audience closer to the product. One of the obstacles remains that FIFA has previously appeared to be opposed to allowing regular-season games to take place outside a host country.
However, the world governing body has been forced to reconsider this position amid a legal tussle with Relevent Sports. Relevent, founded by Miami Dolphins owner and billionaire Stephen Ross, is a media and events company which helped sell the Spanish La Liga’s television rights in the North American market and has a long-term agreement to grow the Spanish league’s commercial arm in the U.S.
La Liga has been attempting to play a La Liga game in the U.S. for more than half a decade and as the proposed promoter of the imagined game, Relevent Sports fought FIFA in the courts to earn the right to do so. In 2024, it achieved a breakthrough when FIFA was dropped from the antitrust lawsuit — which remains against the U.S. Soccer Federation — and FIFA announced its intention to review its policies. At the time, Relevent said FIFA would consider “changes to its existing rules about whether games can be played outside of a league’s home territory”.
In May, during the FIFA Congress in Thailand, the FIFA Council approved the formation of a working group to gather further information and issue recommendations on the matter, with the broad external expectation being that it will pave the way towards domestic games being played abroad. FIFA is still to issue further public guidance.
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Serie A is hoping to be the first European league to do so. Ciccarese said: ”We would love to do it as the president (Simonelli) said. We are working in order to potentially do it but there are barriers that we need to overcome with the right strategy in place and with the support of the clubs, without forgetting that players are players and they have a lot of competition, when they have to play Serie A, Coppa Italia, Champions League and play in international trophies.”
Asked by The Athletic when he believed it would be realistic as a timescale to deliver the games, Ciccarese said: “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. For us, we need the approval of the Italian Federation, with the approval of UEFA, then it goes up to FIFA, and then it goes back to the local community.”
He was then asked if this is also a race against rival competition, such as Spain’s La Liga or UEFA’s Champions League, to be the first European league to land on U.S. soil.
“It’s always a race to try to be the trendsetter because then the followers come and the trendsetter is the one who benefits more potentially in terms of revenues of making this thing happen.
“So again, it should be done in a way that makes sense for the club without forgetting the fans because you cannot play a Milan derby in America because the fans in Italy will get very upset as that game has a big meaning in Italy, so we have to play in a way that is respectful of our audience.”
The Italians are not the only league to have this ambition. The Spanish La Liga has been open about its desire to play a Primera Division game overseas and it has previously had plans thwarted to take a fixture between Barcelona and Girona to Miami in 2018 and then Atletico Madrid against Villarreal in 2019.
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The idea of taking matches abroad is largely born out of the desire of rival European leagues to grow its revenues and international impact, when up against the behemoth of the English Premier League, whose broadcast deals globally dwarf those of the Spanish and Italian leagues.
La Liga and the Premier League also have offices in New York and also regularly organise friendly games for their teams in other continents during the off-season.
La Liga President Javier Tebas has often said — including in multiple interviews with The Athletic — that once it is possible for La Liga to play games overseas, it will do so.
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(Top photo: ISABELLA BONOTTO/AFP via Getty Images)
