Welcome to the Big Thing on Total Soccer Show, the episode where we sink our teeth into one of the biggest talking points in the beautiful game.

Today, we're exploring the concept of major European leagues playing regular season domestic matches abroad.

FIFA has taken a step towards allowing domestic leagues to play competitive

matches abroad after announcing a new working group would be formed to issue recommendations

on the topic. The Liga said it hopes to play matches abroad by 2025 and the idea of a Premier

League 39th game has also come back into focus. Today we're exploring FIFA's position, the position

of some of the top five leagues, what these games would look like, how they'd work, and whether

we think they're on the horizon. My name's Ryan Bailey, joining me today to Big Thing It Up. We've got

Taylor Rockwell. Hello, Taylor. Hello, Ryan. Graham's here. Hi, Graham. Hello. Joe Lowry. Hello, Joe. Hello. All righty. Before we get to the action, by the way, Patreon.com. Thank you. Hello to you too, Joe. Patreon.com slash total soccer show if you'd like to support our show, bonus episodes, bonus content, access to our Discord on there. And we can talk about big things and small things anything soccer related

for all your friends on the discord come and join us there if you will graham kick us off with

this discussion please why is this happening now so this is something that enters the news cycle

every so often the prospect of domestic matches in european leagues being played abroad it's something that enters the news cycle every so often, the prospect of domestic matches in European leagues being played abroad.

It's something that you can trace back to the Premier League's 39th game proposal in 2008.

And I'm sure it was discussed before then as well.

So it's a topic that never truly goes away.

But this time there is some real momentum behind this story.

And the reason for that is on April 8th,

a resolution filed in a New York court dropped FIFA as a defendant in an antitrust lawsuit

brought against FIFA and US soccer by the promoter relevant sports. Now relevant sports,

they were founded by Stephen Ross, who is the owner of the Miami Dolphins. They have rule power

in soccer in that they were the ones behind the International Champions Cup, if you remember

that thing. They have pretty strong links to every major club in Europe. They sell the

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