{"id":340756,"date":"2025-12-11T02:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/340756\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T02:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:43:09","slug":"ac-milan-serie-a-perth-soccer-game-in-serious-doubt-amid-fifa-roadblock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/340756\/","title":{"rendered":"AC Milan Serie A Perth soccer game in serious doubt amid FIFA roadblock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plans to host seven-time European champions AC Milan in Perth for an Italian league game are in trouble, with growing concerns soccer’s global governing body will not sign off on the event.<\/p>\n

The landmark Serie A fixture between AC Milan and Como, scheduled to be played in February, has been pitched as a major tourism drawcard for Perth.<\/p>\n

If approved, it would be the first time a major European league has hosted a game for points outside its home region.<\/p>\n

But that requires approval from five different governing bodies, including the international governing body FIFA, along with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).<\/p>\n

While UEFA “reluctantly” gave the match its blessing in October<\/a>, WA’s Sport Minister and Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti said yesterday the plans had hit a roadblock with FIFA.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Pervis Estupinan is one of AC Milan’s star players. (Getty Images: Paul Kane)<\/p>\n

“A number of conditions have been placed on the sanctioning of the game, very late in the piece, conditions that we believe are extremely difficult to meet,” she said.<\/p>\n

“However, we are working through those with FIFA.”<\/p>\n

The ABC has been told part of the issue is getting FIFA to agree with conditions imposed by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).<\/p>\n

It is understood those conditions include that the match not be branded as ‘Serie A’ and that it use ARC-accredited referees and staff rather than Italians.<\/p>\n

AC Milan president ‘worried’<\/p>\n

AC Milan president Paolo Scaroni has also reportedly expressed concern about the match.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t given up on this issue yet, but there are so many authorisations to obtain that I’m starting to get worried,” he said, according to a translation of his comments in Italian media.<\/p>\n

“If it falls through, it would be a missed opportunity for Serie A, because our goal is to make Serie A attractive around the world.”<\/p>\n

Serie A game in Perth would have been laughable 10 years ago<\/a><\/p>\n

Italian heavyweights AC Milan look set to play a match, for actual Serie A points, in Perth. What will the state government pay to lure them here, and why are some football supporters unhappy?<\/p>\n

AC Milan had been looking to play the match in Perth because its home stadium will be out of action for the Winter Olympics opening ceremony.<\/p>\n

But even one of AC Milan’s own star players had expressed opposition to the idea, with midfielder Adrien Rabiot describing it as “totally crazy”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It’s crazy to travel so many miles for a match between two Italian teams in Australia,” he said in October.<\/p>\n

Plans for a league clash to be played between Barcelona and Villarreal in Miami this month were also scrapped weeks before it was due to be played after pushback from fans and players.<\/p>\n

\"Empty<\/p>\n

A protest against the planned Miami game was held at a recent match in Spain, with fans purposely leaving seats empty. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Ms Saffioti defended the time and money the government had spent trying to get the event off the ground \u2014 including meeting with AC Milan while in Europe in August \u2014 describing it as an “incredible opportunity to market Perth and Western Australia to a global audience”.<\/p>\n

“Our efforts to secure this world-first match have already generated hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of coverage in global media, highlighting how big this event would be for our state,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plans to host seven-time European champions AC Milan in Perth for an Italian league game are in trouble,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[18088,189319,139859,64,63,189320,189318,86,174826,67387,13198,85,45,9570,9569],"class_list":["post-340756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ac-milan","tag-ac-milan-game-in-perth","tag-ac-milan-perth","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-deputy-premier","tag-optus-stadium","tag-perth-news","tag-perth-stadium","tag-rita-saffioti","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-wa-news","tag-wa-politics","tag-wa-pols"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}