The Uefa Super Cup could be turned into a four-team tournament before the start of the season.
It raises the prospect of the curtain-raiser being taken outside of Europe with the United States or the Middle East being a likely destination.
At present the fixture is between the Champions League winners and the Europa League winners – with Paris St-Germain facing Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday evening.
This year’s fixture is taking place in Udine at the Stadio Friuli – the Bluenergy Stadium – which only has a capacity of 25,000. It is understood that the venue, the home of Serie A club Udinese, was the only bidder to host the game, which will be held in Italy for the first time.
Udine was keen to take the fixture having missed out on being one of Italy’s proposed 10 venues – which will be reduced to five – to co-host the European Championship in 2032 with Turkey.
Even though Udine has a state-of-the-art modern stadium, the town is small with no airport, little hotel provision and no public transport – beyond buses being laid on for match day – to get to the venue. Uefa only selected Udine last December as it waited to see which venues would be put forward, but there was no other interest.
European football’s governing body has previously raised the prospect of re-formatting the Super Cup. In a document circulated in 2022 to sell TV rights for the 2024-27 cycle, there was mention of a new Champions League “opening tournament”.
It is understood this would involve four clubs, two semi-finals and a final, although no further detail was offered as to who would qualify beyond, presumably, the two winners who are currently selected given winning the Europa League means automatic qualification for the Champions League.
The idea was quietly dropped but may resurface for the new round of bidding rights which is being evaluated by Uefa and Relevent, the US-based newly appointed media rights sales partner.
It is anticipated that European broadcasters are unlikely to increase their bids, but that Relevent will try to target growth in the US market where there is already great interest in competitive matches between clubs being staged.
Earlier this week, plans were put forward by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) to play a league game between Barcelona and Villarreal in the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on December 21.
The RFEF has approved the proposal and will now seek permission from Uefa and Fifa, although there has been opposition from fan groups and Real Madrid.
Aleksander Ceferin, the Uefa president, has already stated that playing Champions League games outside of Europe and, in particular, in the US has been discussed and is “possible”.
For five consecutive years the Spanish Super Cup – which was expanded to four clubs in 2020 – has been hosted in Saudi Arabia with an agreement signed until 2029. The French league has taken its equivalent to the Community Shield around the world since 2009 – including to Canada, Morocco, China and most recently Qatar.
