Manchester United stalwart Juan Mata is confident Premier League matches will be held abroad ‘sooner rather than later’ after seeing leagues like the NFL experience success.

Talks over an English top-flight game being held outside of the country have been ongoing for years, but with no solution being found.

But Mata believes that it is inevitable in the coming years that the Premier League will bow to the commercial and financial pull of holding matches elsewhere.

I think this is something that might happen eventually,’ Mata told MUTV.  ‘We’ve seen it in different sports, we’ve seen it with some sports played abroad and they are still in competitions.

‘I don’t know if it will happen or not but, because of the way football seems to be going, it might happen sooner rather than later.

‘It will be great for our fans around the world, to be honest. It will be great to see us play live, playing for competitive points.’

The Spaniard, though, does see the issues it presents for fans in the UK, who go regularly to matches home and away.

‘It will be difficult to organise to be honest, and also a little bit unfair for the people that live in the UK who go to every single game,’ he continued.

‘So there’s a little bit of a discussion there to speak deeper about it, but I think that it will happen in football.’