The prospect of Arsenal, Chelsea, and Tottenham Hotspur playing competitive Premier League games overseas has moved a step closer.

Having recently settled an antitrust lawsuit in the United States with Relevent Sports, a company that wants to bring top-flight European football live to overseas markets, world football’s governing body FIFA has now confirmed the creation of a working group to determine the feasibility of playing "out-of-territory matches" - competitive games in different countries with a "revised legal framework". LaLiga is already targeting games in the US by 2025.

While this may seem on the face of it to be a reasonably small development, it is the latest step that opens the door to Premier League games being played overseas in the future. The idea of an overseas game for English football’s top flight isn’t new: it was kicked into the long grass some 14 years ago having initially been discussed by team owners back in 2008.

There is now a greater number of North American owners and investors involved in the English game, at all levels, and the popularity of the game is soaring across the Atlantic as it builds up to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup. In terms of revenue-generating, it opens up new doors for teams, and there is major support to see it come to fruition across the pond, and likely some support in the boardrooms of English football.

The financial boom that the Premier League has enjoyed has been predicated on the League’s ability to continually sell its broadcast rights domestically and internationally at huge prices, far outpacing what their rivals across Europe have been able to achieve. But while the most recently agreed TV deal domestically for £6.7 billion may have seemed like a deal that was another significant step forward, in real terms it is actually diminished in value on a per game basis, with the Premier League giving away 270 games instead of 200 per season, and over four years instead of three.

The stagnation has started, and that will not have gone unnoticed by team owners who will be searching for new ways to raise revenues at a time when wages are growing at a faster rate. Internationally, there is still road to travel in terms of value for the Premier League, and a major part of that growth will come from the United States, where the current deal is worth £2bn per year through NBC Sports.

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With that in mind, Premier League clubs will have added focus on this summer’s pre-season tour. With five of the so-called big six’ - Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Man City - heading stateside, especially given the relatively close proximity to the World Cup and the fact that, after so long seen as a nut that could not be cracked, the US is now a fertile market for growth.

Only Spurs are heading elsewhere this summer, continuing to place much focus on growing the club’s brand in Asia, aided in no small part by the huge popularity of South Korean star Son Heung-min. But in order to maximise the opportunity in the US and beyond, team owners will know that they have to offer up more to audiences in that market, and the Premier League will know that too.

It seems inevitable that competitive games will take place in the US, and that is what the American market craves. They want to see games that have something riding on them once a year. Whether that is a full round of games in the US via a 39th game, or just one or two showpiece games per season, it is what the market wants. The US have been taking their wares across the pond for competitive games for years, with the NFL, MLB, and NBA regular visitors to these shores.

Selling that idea to UK fans will be a tall order, though. The pushback to the European Super League demonstrated the power of supporters, and that will be in the thinking of team owners and decision-makers when it comes to approaching overseas games. Until now there have been FIFA roadblocks to seeing those kinds of ideas come to fruition. But after a recent court case in New York, where FIFA settled an antitrust lawsuit with Relevent Sports - a company that wanted to bring games overseas - the landscape has started to shift.

FIFA’s working group will looking at a number of potential issues and feed back to world football’s governing body in due course, taking into account a variety of factors such as fairness on fans, and the potential impact on sporting competition and the integrity of the game. With LaLiga already planning to host regular-season games in the US from 2025, potentially getting ahead of the Premier League in a hugely important battleground, the issue (now that FIFA is appearing to soften its stance) will come back to the fore soon for Premier League shareholders, with the League not wanting to cede its position as the largest, richest, most popular football league in the world.

Given the billions invested in the competition through team ownership by groups who know intimately how the US sporting landscape operates, and how ‘soccer’ is ready to truly take flight in a country of huge population and disposable income, it is hard to imagine that there would be enormous internal opposition to such an idea. Supporters may well have opposing views to any such attempts, though. Neil Joyce, CEO of fan data specialist firm CLV Group, believes that competitive overseas matches will become a vital tool for clubs.

"Finding new fans in new ways via new propositions will become absolutely crucial to clubs moving forward," he Joyce. "We know the US market is ready for Premier League clubs to win the hearts, minds, and wallets of undecided, unknown US fans - whether it’s through selling merchandise directly to fans or pursuing partnerships across other sports, collaborations with video gaming, music, and content creators.

"Miss this opportunity and we risk losing all of our momentum to the rising tide of organic growth of Major League Soccer, not to mention other European heavyweights like Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, and Bayern Munich. With many of the top Premier League clubs preparing to embark upon their US summer tour once more, they all know the opportunity is there for them.

"To progress, they must give US fans more access - and having competitive matches actually take place in the US would only be replicating the success seen by the NFL in bringing American Football to UK and European audiences. Simply put, it’s a transformative opportunity that cannot be missed."