Manchester United will “headline” the Premier League Summer Series for the first time with the pre-season tournament set to take place in the United States.
The Red Devils have shown a clear preference for choosing America as the home for the bulk of their pre-season tours in recent years, with the copious number of commercial opportunities afford by the US a massive boost to the club’s finances.
However, the gruelling nature of the travel involved for the players during a period, ostensibly, designed to get them as fit as possible has been questioned in the past.
But United are set to revisit the United States this summer with Craig Hope (Mail Sport) revealing, “Premier League chiefs are on the verge of securing the flagship addition of United for the first time as part of one of their official pre-season schedules.”
“The Old Trafford club were not involved in the inaugural Summer Series on the US East Coast in 2023, and they never took part in nine iterations of the Asia Trophy between 2003 and 2019.”
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Manchester United set to headline Premier League Summer Series in United States
🇺🇸 East Coast likely for venues & talks ongoing with other clubs, but MUFC participation a coup for PLhttps://t.co/Ig3GhZtMWe
— Craig Hope (@CraigHope_DM) January 22, 2025
Tweet: “Manchester United set to headline Premier League Summer Series in United States. East Coast likely for venues & talks ongoing with other clubs, but MUFC participation a coup for PL.”
Hope further reveals the tournament is “likely to kick off towards the end of July” with the East Coast “likely for venues”.
The addition of the England’s biggest club to the preseason tournament is a huge win for Premier League bosses with United ensuring “as good as guarantee sold-out stadiums wherever they play”.
There is always an interesting battle between the football interests of a club and the inevitable commercial demands required to fund them.
United will be improved by Ruben Amorim being buttressed with a significant transfer war chest this summer and one important means of achieving this is a profitable preseason tour. As is often the case in other walks of life, America equates to profit in footballing terms.
However, a draining tour covering the full length of America, which is more of a continent than a country, is a negative for Amorim and his squad given the number of PR responsibilities that will be included in this journey.
There is a balance to be struck, therefore, between the economic benefits off the pitch a preseason in the US produces, versus the detriment it incurs on the pitch for the players.
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Darragh Fox
Darragh is a writer for The Peoples Person who spent three years as a history graduate slowly realising football was by far the most interesting thing to write about.
