La Liga president Javier Tebas has stated his belief that his league will stage official matches in the U.S. as soon as the 2025-26 season.
Tebas appears to believe that FIFA and U.S. Soccer will ultimately lose an ongoing lawsuit that challenges a ban on teams from staging league matches abroad.
“I think it could be in the 2025-26 season, but La Liga will play official matches abroad,” Tebas told Spanish newspaper Expansion.
“An official match in the U.S. will strengthen our position in the North American market, which is the second market for La Liga after Spain.”
Tebas said he expects La Liga will not be the only league to try and hold matches abroad.
“Other very competitive leagues are coming so we cannot always do the same thing, but we cannot allow them to overtake us,” Tebas said.
The La Liga president conducted the interview the same week that the U.S. Supreme Court said it would allow an antitrust lawsuit from soccer promoter Relevent Sports to move forward.
Relevent originally filed the lawsuit in 2019 after U.S. Soccer refused to sanction a regular-season match between Girona and Barcelona that was set to take place in Miami.
Earlier this month, Relevent and FIFA reached an agreement to drop FIFA from the lawsuit, leaving U.S. Soccer as the lone defendant. Though the agreement hasn’t been approved by a judge, it appears to be another step toward FIFA ending its global ban on teams playing official league matches abroad.
“FIFA and Relevent have agreed to resolve this matter as it concerns FIFA, pending FIFA’s consideration of changes to existing FIFA policies with respect to playing official season games outside of a league’s home territory,” FIFA said in a statement. “FIFA has not admitted any liability and continues to deny the legal claims alleged in Relevent’s complaint.”
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