DUNDEE managing director John Nelms has admitted the Dens Park club would be open to playing a William Hill Premiership match overseas in future nine years after their plan to take on Celtic in the United States was scuppered.
Spanish giants Barcelona and Atletico Madrid are currently in talks about staging their La Liga fixture on December 22 at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami and are optimistic that FIFA, UEFA and the Spanish FA will all give the proposal the go-ahead.
The Catalan giants, who are currently playing at the Olympic Stadium while their Nou Camp home is being redeveloped, took on Real Madrid in a friendly in front of 82,500 fans in the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey last summer.
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La Liga president Javier Tebas is keen to host a game in a foreign country – something which both the NBA and NFL have done in recent seasons.
He is hopeful there may be a softening of the hardline stance on the issue which has always been adopted by European and world football’s governing bodies.
FIFA have always stipulated that league matches should take place within the territory of their member association – but UEFA president Alexander Ceferin has stated he would like to put on the Champions League final in the United States in the future.
Dundee, who are owned by Texas-based businessman Tim Keyes, first floated the idea of playing a Premiership game in a foreign country back in 2015 and discussions were held with senior officials at Celtic about facing them in either Boston or Philadelphia. FIFA, UEFA and the MLS all expressed their reservations about the proposal and the idea was shelved.
But Nelms said: “Is it something we’d look at again? Yes, we're open to all of these things. We're in the entertainment business so anything we can do to entertain, we'd certainly do that.
“That project nearly happened, it was very, very close. It would have been fantastic for everybody, financially for the football club, for the eyes that you'd get on the game, everything we thought that that would be fantastic for. The NFL are doing it just now, they were in Germany last weekend. They see the benefits in doing that.”
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He added: “Now, with benefits also come the negative side of it, which is making sure that your national identity and the league's identity is there.
“In the United States, their concern was the Mexican League potentially playing a lot of their games because of the loopholes that we found and how we could make it happen. In the U.S, especially in the southern states, the following for Mexican football is huge.
“I think if you put the two games up against each other, an MLS game versus a Mexican League game, you'd have a big group of people that would choose the Mexican League game in certain states in the United States. So I understand what the fears were.
“Then Canada said, ‘Right, let's do it in Canada’. But the problem with Canada is during the time of year that we play our games, it's usually frozen up there, and we weren't willing to play this game on plastic. So that killed that.”
“There are an enormous amount of hoops. It's FIFA, it's UEFA and the local leagues. But if it ever arose again that we're able to do that, we have a little bit more of an understanding of how it works now and we'd certainly be up for something like that.
“The question is how it would affect the MLS and I understand that. If we had English Premier League games being played up here, I think we'd be a bit concerned that our stadiums might be empty that week because Man Utd are playing Man City at Hampden. I think we'd all have a little bit of a fear of that so I understand it.”
