Liverpool will return to the United States for the club’s pre-season tour this summer to play in three matches against Wrexham, Leeds United and Sunderland following the completion of the World Cup in North America.
Multiple sources familiar with the planning have told The Athletic that Liverpool will play against Wrexham, the team part-owned by Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, in a fixture at Yankee Stadium. That is the famous home of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and also one of the venues used by MLS side New York City FC.
As part of a mini-series, Liverpool and Wrexham will also play Premier League teams Leeds United and Sunderland. The matches will take place across the final week of July and the first weekend of August, and Liverpool will play games in Nashville, New York and Chicago, keeping their travel largely towards the east coast and midwest of the country.
The series of games will be organized and promoted by the events company TEG Sport, which previously promoted a sell-out game between Manchester United and Liverpool at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina in 2024. TEG declined to comment for this report.
Wrexham are currently sixth in the EFL Championship and in contention for a play-off place in their quest to achieve promotion to the Premier League. Phil Parkinson’s team, who have become widely-followed in the U.S. due to the influence of their owners and the “Welcome to Wrexham” documentary series, are also nine points away from second place, an automatic promotion spot.
It may mean Wrexham head to the U.S. this summer on tour as a Premier League side for the first time in the club’s history — but there is much to do yet before it achieves promotion. Wrexham previously went on tour to the U.S. in both 2023 and 2024, for games against opponents including Chelsea and Manchester United.
Sunderland and Leeds are currently well-placed to remain Premier League teams next season. Sunderland beat Leeds 1-0 at Elland Road on Tuesday night to reach 40 points.
How the series will work
The venues will be a mix of MLS and NFL-sized stadiums but the matches will not be at any arenas used during the World Cup this summer.
The series will begin on Saturday, July 25, when Wrexham will play Leeds at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, the home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On the same day, Liverpool will face Sunderland at GEODIS Park in Nashville.
Wrexham is chasing yet another promotion – this time to the Premier League. (Jan Kruger / Getty Images)
On Wednesday, July 29, Liverpool will face Wrexham at Yankee Stadium, before Leeds play Sunderland the following night at the Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, New Jersey, the home of the New York Red Bulls.
The series will conclude on Sunday, August 2, when Liverpool plays Leeds at Soldier Field in Chicago and Sunderland plays Wrexham at Subaru Park in Philadelphia, home to MLS side Philadelphia Union.
Wrexham firmly in the big league
Analysis by Wrexham correspondent Richard Sutcliffe
So, after twice playing Chelsea in the U.S. and also beating Manchester United in San Diego, Liverpool lay in wait for Wrexham this summer.
This latest glamour friendly, at the iconic Yankee Stadium no less, puts the Welsh club firmly in the big league, at least in terms of their pulling power for an American audience.
As we saw in 2023 and 2024 when Phil Parkinson’s side headed over the Atlantic, there’ll be plenty of Wrexham shirts on show in New York with an estimated two-fifths of the 50,596 sell-out crowd vs Chelsea in Chapel Hill on that first foray to the States cheering on the newly-crowned National League champions. Local tourist bosses estimated the boost to the local economy from that one match was worth up to $20 million.
Wrexham remain big business in the States, a point underlined by more than half their £26.7m annual turnover in 2023-24 coming from overseas, the vast majority of that from North America.
When the next set of accounts for the 2024-25 League One promotion campaign are published in the coming weeks, expect that ratio, and the numbers, to grow further.
So, it’s no surprise Wrexham have been lined up to play Liverpool, plus two more Premier League opponents in Tampa and co-owner Mac’s hometown of Philadelphia.
A far cry from the last meeting between the clubs
Analysis from Liverpool correspondent James Pearce
It’s no surprise that Liverpool has opted to return to America for this summer’s pre-season tour.
The Premier League champion has a huge fanbase in the country and an array of lucrative commercial deals with blue-chip U.S. brands such as Google Pixel, Peloton, UPS and Orion Innovation.
Owner Fenway Sports Group is Boston-based and the tour in late July gives the club the opportunity to capitalise on the interest generated by the World Cup.
Liverpool’s previous trip to the States in the summer of 2024 proved to be a big success. A combined total of more than 190,000 supporters attended its three matches in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Columbia, South Carolina.
Yankee Stadium seats 47,309, per design firm Populous. (Al Bello / Getty Images)
Head coach Arne Slot was delighted with the elite facilities his squad were able to use as Liverpool put in the groundwork for their march to the title in 2024-25.
Facing Wrexham at New York’s iconic Yankee Stadium will be a far cry from the last meeting between the clubs — a friendly at the Welsh team’s Racecourse Ground in front of 11,210 fans in 2007. Back then, Wrexham was in the fourth tier of English football.
Liverpool last played at Yankee Stadium in 2019, when Jurgen Klopp’s side drew 2-2 with Sporting.
Chicago has also featured as a destination on previous Liverpool tours — Brendan Rodgers’ side beat Olympiacos 1-0 there in 2014 — but this will be the first time they have played in Nashville.
A long-anticipated return for Leeds
Analysis from Leeds United correspondent Beren Cross
This is the first time Leeds will head to the U.S. since 49ers Enterprises first invested in the club in 2018. The USA-based shareholder first took a minority stake eight years ago, but then took full control of the club in July 2023 after relegation to the Championship.
It has felt inevitable the team would cross the Atlantic for a pre-season tour and, if anything, was anticipated long before now. The San Francisco 49ers may be based on the other side of the country, but the investment arm of the NFL franchise will look to make a fuss of finally having its Premier League team on American shores.
It’s also impossible to ignore United’s ties with Red Bull, another significant investor and front-of-shirt sponsor, which owns New York Red Bulls. Red Bull and 49ers Enterprises will surely take full advantage of having Leeds on their side of the Atlantic.
As for the games, Daniel Farke will hope the facilities are elite and non-football activity does not distract from the business of preparing for the new campaign. Wrexham, the coming force of British football in the USA with its charismatic owners, and Leeds will meet in a match for the first time in their history.
