ITALIAN Serie A chiefs have finally bowed to the inevitable and junked plans to play a game abroad.
Clubs in Italy’s top flight agreed to let AC Milan stage their February 18 home clash with Cesc Fabregas’ Como in Perth, Western Australia.
The scheduled match date clashes with the Winter Olympics, where the San Siro is the host stadium, and Serie A bosses pushed ahead with the proposal despite a backlash from leading players.
They stuck to their guns even after Spain’s LaLiga scrapped its contentious project which would have seen Barcelona’s away match at Villarreal last weekend staged in Miami.
Serie A even agreed to breach its own rulebook and allow the game to be officiated by Australian referees, while the Asian Football Confederation demanded there be no promotion of the game as a domestic Italian fixture and no perimeter advertising of the competition.
The match was expected to be worth £3.5million to Serie A and a similar amount to each club.
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But in a major U-turn, Serie A President Ezio Simonelli announced the idea was now off the table – blaming the AFC and Aussie FA for fresh “unacceptable” demands.
Simonelli said: “We had already accepted some requests that from a sporting point of view were unacceptable and indigestible. I’m talking about the referees in particular.
“But in order to bring the Italian championship abroad for the first time and be the first in this, we had digested this bitter pill.
“However, in the face of an escalation of further and unacceptable requests made by the AFC towards the Australian Federation and consequently the Government of Western Australia and Serie A, it has become impossible to play the match.
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“While we regret the outcome of this project, we remain firmly convinced that this conclusion represents a missed opportunity in the growth of Italian football internationally, and it also deprives the many Serie A fans abroad of the dream of watching their favorite team play live.”
The decision will be welcomed by fan groups and raises the bar for Fifa and Uefa to now step in and rule out domestic matches being played overseas.
Uefa’s ruling executive committee “reluctantly” approved the plans from both Spain and Italy in October, citing a lack of rules to prevent the games being switched.
But the European governing body pledged to work with Fifa to “uphold the integrity of domestic competitions and the close bond between clubs, their supporters and local communities”.
Uefa President Aleksander Ceferin said: “League matches should be played on home soil.
“Our commitment is clear: to protect the integrity of national leagues and ensure that football remains anchored in its home environment.”
