Pre-season friendlies in the US are a harbinger of football’s grueling future

OOn a sunny summer Saturday in Inglewood, California, two of the Premier League’s most historic rivals faced off on the pitch, and the biggest news had nothing to do with the score of the match. Instead, two key injuries for Manchester United (Rasmus Hojlund and new signing Leny Yoro) grabbed the headlines after Arsenal’s 2-1 win, with the London side’s two key Gabriels (Jesus and Martinelli) scoring.

It’s still early days. Injuries were probably the biggest drawback of a match between these opponents at this venue. But that may not last long. Soon, games like this week’s Liverpool-Arsenal clash in Philadelphia or Chelsea-Man City in Columbus could really make an impact on the standings.

The reason for this lies just nine miles away from where Milan and Man City kicked off their own transatlantic exhibition in New York City on Saturday: the Southern District Court of New York in Manhattan, where in 2019 event promoter Relevent Sports filed a lawsuit against US Soccer and FIFA. Relevent originally filed the lawsuit alleging that US Soccer had denied it a license to stage an Ecuadorian league match in the US. Earlier this year, FIFA reached a deal with Relevent to withdraw from the lawsuit, crucially promising to amend its bylaws as part of the deal while admitting no wrongdoing.

FIFA has not yet removed the law, but has promised to do so by the end of the year and ordered a review of the rule at its most recent congress in May. By almost any reading, removal of the rule is all but inevitable, with Premier League matches on American soil sure to follow soon after – whether as sanctioned league fixtures or as part of an additional or rebranded cup competition.

With likely some time left before those competitions actually begin, this summer’s US Tour competitions now find themselves in a strange middle ground: no longer an innocent bit of fun before a grueling season, but perhaps a harbinger of what an even more grueling club season might look like. Not only will players be competing more meaningfully than ever before, they’ll be doing so in an unprecedented number of locations far removed from the communities the clubs were originally intended to represent.

There is considerable opposition to these potential overseas competitions, not least from grassroots fans. The masses who fill the clubs’ stadiums each week rightly feel aggrieved that their domestic circuits would outdo a generation of rising commercial revenues, higher ticket prices, inflated player salaries and astronomical transfer fees by abandoning the very people who gave them the platform to reap those rewards in the first place. It is the phenomenon of the European Super League, in a different form.

It should be remembered that while English fans are asking for a concession in terms of more favourable kick-off times, team owners may one day have their sights set on a possible North London derby, say in New York, LA or Nome, Alaska.

The debate is heated enough and relevant enough to broader trends of globalization that it is no longer just about football. And the “real world,” like the football world, generally agrees: the trend is all but inevitable.

“We have seven Premier League clubs in London, but if you look at the way the Premier League works, a large part of the revenue they receive is from TV rights,” said the Mayor of London. Sadiq Khan told the Sports Agents podcast“I think the point that the Premier League and some of the owners would make is: why can’t their fans in those countries benefit from a competitive game?”

What is not said, and perhaps assumed, is that the clubs themselves would benefit enormously. Most estimates put the commercial revenue from pre-season tours at over $10 million for Premier League clubs, so it is no wonder that Europe’s biggest teams now regularly visit the United States. In the early 2000s, they did so because the market was largely untapped. Today, they do so because the taps are fully installed and fans have shown they are prepared to flood venues, no matter the stakes.

In 2014, the Relevent-hosted friendly between Manchester United and Real Madrid at Michigan Stadium set an all-time record that still stands for the largest attendance at a single soccer game in U.S. history: more than 109,000, a total sellout of the Big House in Ann Arbor. This past weekend’s games continued to draw solid numbers, and in locations like South Bend, Indiana (home of Chelsea-Celtic) that traditionally don’t see any type of top-tier soccer. Sunday’s Liverpool-Man United game in South Carolina sold out in a matter of hours. Ticket prices for all of these games easily run into the hundreds — again, for games that means nothing.

There’s value beyond dollars and cents, too. Every day a European club spends in the U.S. is a chance to give its players exposure they might otherwise never get—see Christian Pulisic’s appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show this week, made possible by Milan’s visit to the Big Apple. It’s the kind of mainstream exposure for a soccer star rarely seen in the U.S. outside of World Cups. And promoters like Relevent are at the heart of much of this activity and the money it generates.

It’s easy to imagine how hosting competitive matches could accelerate these trends, and it’s equally hard to imagine it not happening soon. So while these summer friendlies may be pointless, it’s wise to enjoy them while they last.

• This is an excerpt from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, the Guardian US’s weekly look at the game in Europe and beyond. Register for free here. Jonathan will be back from his summer break next week with a mailbag edition ahead of the new season. You can email your questions to soccerwithjw@theguardian.com.