An off-the-cuff comment from Alan Pardew piqued Jeff Berding's interest in coming to London - and a meeting with MLS officials a few weeks later made it something of a business necessity.

In mid-July, the night before FC Cincinnati hosted Crystal Palace in a friendly match at Nippert Stadium, Berding and Pardew got chatting at a reception for both teams.

Berding, the FC Cincinnati general manager and former Cincinnati Bengals executive, mentioned to the Palace manager that he was thinking of coming to England in October to see the NFL team play at Wembley Stadium.

When Berding, who had never been to London before, added that the game took place the day after Palace hosted Liverpool at Selhurst Park, Pardew said he would be delighted if he came for the Premier League match.

A fortnight later, at the MLS All-Star game in San Jose, Berding learned, as he puts it, "that we had a seriously good shot at MLS expansion but it became clear to us that there were certain things that we needed to do".

Berding then decided to use the trip to see Palace and the Bengals as an opportunity to see how Premier League clubs work in order to make FC Cincinnati as best prepared as possible to become a Major League Soccer expansion team.