Fang groups ask for UEFA, FIFA action to block Barcelona and Milan games abroad

Football fans of more than 400 club supporter groups in Europe insisted on FIFA and UEFA on Wednesday to block requests from the Spanish and Italian competitions to play games abroad.

The Spanish football federation has approved plans for Barcelona to play Villarreal in Miami in December, and Serie A wants AC Milan Como to organize in February in Perth, Australia.

Read also: France and Barcelona Defender Kounde gives a warning about the busy football calendar

In anticipation of the UEFA’s Executive Committee meeting next week in Albania, the officially recognized fan Liaison Group Football Supporters wanted to show the scale of opposition against «extraterrestrial» matches of a fangroep in Villarreal.

«We call on UEFA, FIFA and all national associations to keep up, play their role as supervisors of the game,» said the FSE group on Wednesday, with the support of fang groups in 25 countries, «and to ensure that football remains rooted in our communities where it belongs.»

«Clubs are neither entertainment companies nor traveling circuses. They exist for their communities and offer a sense of solidarity, where fans have been attending home games for generations,» FSE said.

Critics of the plans, including the best sports officer of the European Commission in Brussels, Glenn Micallef, say that the sporting integrity of competitions would also be unbalanced and damaged.

Allowing the Barcelona or AC Milan matches would «immediately open a Pandora’s box with unpredictable and irreversible consequences,» the fang groups warned.

Fresh proposals to move domestic competitions abroad were inevitable as soon as FIFA withdrew from a lawsuit last year in New York, brought by the relevant promotion agency.

Relevent was co-founded by Stephen Ross, owner of the Miami Dolphins, whose Hard Rock Stadium will organize the game Villarreal-Barcelona that the clubs hope they will help build their fan bases and brands worldwide.

Barcelona has been struggling for several years and Miami is also where his iconic former star Lionel Messi is currently playing, for Inter Miami in Major League Soccer.

Relevent is now also one of the most important commercial partners in UEFA, who this year will close a deal to sell broadcast and sponging rights for six years of the Champions League and other European club matches from 2027.

The prevailing committee of UEFA will meet in Tirana on 11 September, chaired by President Aleksander Ceferin. He suggested last week that UEFA should talk to FIFA and currently has a limited legal power to stop overseas games if the national federations involved agree.

Published on 03 September 2025