The new Club World Cup explained - and why 'football wants this'

The new Club World Cup format will launch in summer 2025 with 32 teams, including Chelsea and Real Madrid guaranteed, as FIFA look to create a rival to the Champions League. So are the world's biggest clubs on board with Gianni Infantino's new format? And is there really enough room in the schedule for it to work? This is a clip from a podcast double header this week on the future of football...
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#clubworldcup #fifa #theathletic

[@TheAthleticFCPodcast]

So a 32-team Club World Cup every four years - are you a fan? 👇

[@poppinc8145]

There's already a Club World Cup but which takes the champions of each continent plus the tournament host. The current model is only flawed because they would just throw in the undeserving host club, often from a rich Gulf monarchy. A reworked CWC doesn't need 32 teams, just expand it to 12 and host it every 2 years instead of annually. That way there's slow hype that builds up. The model would be: 6 continental champs from year one and 6 continental champs from year two are the contendors. If the same club was continental champ twice in a row, then the two runners-up from each year have a match to determine who the second entry is from that continent. If the same club was continental runner-up twice in a row then they get instant entry.

[@u4eahh2]

No, I'd like a damned summer off for players so they're not putting unnecessary mileage on their bodies or picking up long-term injuries and instead resting for REAL competitions. This is just FIFA determined to wet their beak at the club football end, at the expense of players' health.

[@ishaandw]

Even though using UEFA club coefficients for 8 spots would guarantee that my club would be in the new club world cup everytime, it would be interesting to have the past 4 Europa league and 4 Europa conference league winners to be in it instead.

[@user-wr4ik5bn5i]

FIFA allaw 2 teams per country for uefa coefficients

[@u4eahh2]

FIFA: "We can get a piece of that club football cash, AND make this a bribe to turn into Infantino votes, while only risking players' health!" Big Clubs: "We can add millions to our bottom line and the only risk is to our players' health!" Fans: "Do not want plz no, let players rest for the real competitions" Pundits: "WORLD FOOTBALL WANTS THIS!"

[@zephyrhash]

You know the solution is very simple: Remove the dumb 25 player cap and allow clubs to have around 30 player teams to compete in all competitions. Promote youth players and give them opportunities. Already we have infinite number of youth tourneys. Remove some of them and force clubs to integrate youth into the first team, and also promote football in countries where it is lacking to have a bigger talent pool.

[@u4eahh2]

@@zephyrhash Or, just don't add more meaningless fucking tournaments to clog up the football calendar and put more unnecessary mileage on players' legs or punish them with long-term injuries. I don't think it's in any way better for a 17 year old to suffer a torn hamstring than it is for a 28 year old. It's just a bad idea purely motivated by greed from corrupt FIFA representatives.

[@SoppadaSoupp]

You need to realise that there is football outside of europe, very much eager to prove itself capable of beating europe

[@u4eahh2]

@SoppadaSoupp We're all aware. But others wanting to play Europe does not mean Europe want to play everyone else. What YOU need to realize is that the football calendar is already BEYOND full. More and more top players are picking up worse injuries because beyond stuffing up to 70 club matches in 9 months, there are more and more god damned meaningless international competitions, and on top of THOSE, there are still international friendlies? And you still haven't addressed the motivations behind FIFA & clubs pushing for this, which is essentially open corruption. Not one of these authorities of the game is looking out for the welfare of players, who are the ones doing the labor. You want to prove it so desperately, get an Xbox or something.

[@werewolf1803]

​@@u4eahh2 Would you say this if Europe wasn't the footballing superpower it is? What if Asia were the place where European footballers aspired to be?

[@BigPurp9]

Honestly feel like the damage Ceferin and Infantino have done to football in such a short amount of time is incredible. 2 men drunk on power changing things for the worse for the sake of it.

[@ogbmt]

I don't know about the work of Ceferin but do you seriously think Infantino has been that bad? The era of Blatter and Platini was so horrendously corrupt that this has been a massive improvement so far. I do agree with Mark when he says that anything FIFA do at the moment is met with criticism because it's FIFA. More to the point, is this change to the club world cup format really a bad thing? I've never in my life watched a game from the annual club world cup, and it is surely one of the least watched club competitions, meanwhile the champions league and the world cup are watched by everyone everywhere.

[@dannyl8994]

@@ogbmt I would say it is a bad thing. The big teams are the ones who already play the most games and now they want to add even more through a 32 team club World Cup. The likelihood then is that the European teams are more likely to play a reserve squad in it which will give it a preseason friendly sort of feel so it won’t bring in as many eyes as they think and that’s best case scenario for the players. Otherwise they play a strong team and add however many games to the season that’s already over full in my opinion and risk burnout and injuries

[@AnonNomad]

If UEFA ever decided to put a wall between itself and FIFA, I wouldn't be against that. Really sick of these organisations being so removed from fans on the terraces, inventing these tin-pot competitions and stinking out the football calendar.

[@u4eahh2]

I would be fine with this as well.

[@j.s3300]

Uefa is awful too

[@adtastic1533]

​@@j.s3300 It's still better than FIFA

[@j.s3300]

@@adtastic1533 a slap in the face is better than a kick to the balls. But I dont want to be slapped

[@u4eahh2]

@J.S UEFA is awful. FIFA is the most corrupt governing body in major sports, worldwide. There are no "good guys" here, but with UEFA, at least it's the devil you know.

[@brothatisfunny]

Yea, let's keep pilling more and more games, i'm sure that won't affect players at all

[@Dave-Shearer]

Getting the best 4 teams from Oceania will be awesome. Nothing will make international fans more likely to watch than 2 Amateur Nz teams, a team from Fiji and the New Caledonian league champions.

[@fpupesh]

i was wondering what could be done so these players can hit a 100 games per season. i'm glad fifa figured it out.

[@barry4649]

If this wasn’t on the Confederations Cup would be on, and I know which one I’d rather see

[@u4eahh2]

@Barry 🇮🇪 a bullshit international tournament vs a bullshit club competition. SO tempting 😦

[@barry4649]

@@u4eahh2 I disagree that this is bullshit, people will switch up and start praising it after seeing it like they did at the Qatar World Cup

[@u4eahh2]

@Barry 🇮🇪 oh cool, so they're gonna kill thousands of migrant workers and harass anyone expressing support for marginalized groups? Thank GOD there's a tournament for fascists, finally!

[@wolfeflambe]

Who would have guessed that Infantino would be worse than Blatter. And as usual the fans lose out so others can line their pockets.

[@XboneMalone]

Player fatigue aside regarding this FIFA club competition, UEFA (if they were canny) could rebrand the champions league to the UEFA Super League (given that it isn't reserved for the champions anymore), almost killing the idea of a European Super League going forwards (with it's alleged meritocracy arguments rendered moot).

[@carlosmisaelvendraminifurt2041]

New world Cup Will be good.... ALL them here US , Chelsea, Brazil National team, real Madrid, Liverpool, Germany, Argentina, Arsenal, Flamengo,..... World Will be happy ... ❤ Soccer ❤🎉

[@barrypegg3070]

Would they also have to adjust players contracts and the transfer windows to suit this new competition. Assuming it played at end of season, after international matches so at moment you would have teams that have lost players. If you take Liverpool (who I assume would currently qualify) if it was held this summer they would potentially lose 4 players before the competition started.

[@andy9735]

Carbon footprint?

[@sardonnay5031]

I think it could possibly incentivize clubs to try build a team for the club world cup. That would be quite interesting.

[@SinaShakiba]

I like the idea of this new club world cup but I think the reality will be less positive when European teams win every edition it will soon get boring. They should have spread the European teams so teams from the Conference League and Europa League get in as well

[@paulie-g]

Not clear that would happen. Copa Libertadores winners have given very good accounts of themselves in these games, so they at least would be competitive. The danger is the Europeans not taking it seriously.

[@zaki9987]

Well the Asian and African teams are pulling themselves nowadays it's not just European teams so you have at least four continents now going for it if you include south America, and you never know these things have a tendency to grow you might see teams apart from Europe taking it home

[@paulie-g]

@@zaki9987 Very little chance of that unless Europe/Americas clubs don't take it seriously. I wish it were otherwise, but it just isn't - the level of competition, players and management are simply too far apart. I'd still like to see those teams though and this competition might give them extra money to progress and some well-deserved exposure around the world. My biggest fear for it would be that the European clubs decide to treat it as a glorified set of pre-season friendlies and thereby devalue it from the get go.

[@zephyrhash]

Everyone worrying about fixture congestion, the answer is pretty simple. Increase the talent pool. Promote football in countries where academies are lacking. Remove squad caps and allow teams to have 30+ players. 25 man squad rules are completely arbitrary. The best version of the reason is to allow smaller teams to compete with bigger teams, but because of global outreach, smaller teams can raise enough funds now to support bigger squads. Player salaries and squad caps if anything are the reason why fixture congestion exists. It will take time to increase the "quality" of football owing to a sudden increase in squad caps and having qualitatively worse footballers playing, but overtime, the game will balance out.

[@tyneskipper]

i love that nobody has actually asked the players if they are happy dragging themselves to somewhere for 20 more games ?

[@barry4649]

I thought the host was confirmed to be Saudi Arabia? If it’s on in Europe or America, I’m 100% going

[@Tanesis]

Stuff like this reminds me why I sometimes hate football

[@barry4649]

I don’t understand the backlash about this new Club World Cup. The current Club World Cup is absolute shit, and this one is replacing the god awful Confederations Cup. Also this is a big competition to give big money to great non European teams for a change. I love this idea

[@TheRisingHomeland]

Absolutely against it. The FIFA CWC is fine as it is, just change the format and avoid having a host team in it.

[@CYABASHIRA]

Urawa Reds will become the first champions.

[@LamontGranquist]

I'm normally against all these new competitions and games, but this new CWC is one that sounds good to me since I'm in N America. I'd happily scrap most of the rest of the nonsense out there, but would keep this one. I don't know if European football watchers will ever like it, but everyone else in the world is going to think its great.

[@u4eahh2]

Yeah, there's no better way to prove to the world that MLS clubs are on par with English Championship clubs than by having them blown out by European giants for a few weeks every 4 summers 🤡

[@TheAdamRawks]

Oh FFS.

[@Ray-rw8fq]

Well I won’t watch it. It’s terrifying that these people have charge of the game. There is also a potential that the format of qualification criteria in Europe, as an example may see corrupt clubs qualifying. Let me explain. Four places are set aside for the last four winners of the champions league. So it may be possible in let’s say the second club championship in 2029, that the winner of the 2025 (as a hypothetical example let’s say Juventus) champions league qualifies by right. However in between 2025 and 2029, Juventus are found guilty of corruption, and Serie A fine them enormous mounts of money and relegate them to the lowest league in Italian football. Where does that leave Juventus, and more importantly where does it leave FIFA.

[@adtastic1533]

Don't see why UEFA would allow this. Surely FIFA are trying to invent a competitor to the UCL.

[@DontAttme]

More like trying to create something superior. The current CWC is shit and if you were new to the sport logically thinking you'd expect the intercontinental competition to be better than the continental version, such is the goal here. Copa America and Euros aren't bigger than the WC, FIFA thinks the same of the CWC should be true.

[@devanman7920]

Watering the shite out of the sport

[@WaniZame]

Nobody outside South America wants this.

[@buenavictoria]

“maybe liverpool and united should play better on the field” while chelsea gets an automatic bid. you’re joking right? is your memory…specific to literally only one year? liverpool have been the competition’s second best team for the last 6-7 years and third is distant. the premier league’s second best team as well - third distant. chelsea improbably won UCL once, have been entirely mediocre despite spending enough on players to buy a country, and you’re advocating for their entry based on merit? lmao that’s so bad. that’s such a hilariously bad take.

[@Mr91Jmay]

What are you blathering on about? It was an example using a random club you absolutely soft lad

[@anjolatope-babalola2338]

Lmao america is not the next host, its actually north america And damn, what of the other host, you act like all the host would have experience hosting tourneys

[@vandal_dk]

Real Madrid vs. Vissel Kobe Manchester United vs. Flamengo Bayern Munich vs. LA Galaxy PSG vs. Al Nassr Sounds pretty exciting to me, actually. Something new, something fresh that we’ve never seen before.

[@adtastic1533]

Actually we see this all the time, it's called the Europa league and it sucks.

[@u4eahh2]

We see it every summer when big UEFA clubs come on preseason tours. Also, you've never seen a series of blowout scorelines before? 😂

[@Mr91Jmay]

Sounds like a preseason tournament

[@eamonreidy9534]

I believe in scrapping the uefa super cup, the league cup, shrinking the premier league a bit, canceling fa cup replays, halving the amount of international football. But this isn't a terrible idea. Once every four years. Replaces the shit fifa club world cup we suffer now.

[@swampytv9611]

The season before the Club World Cup happens they shouldn’t have the champions league.

[@TheBake1986]

Then you’re punishing the dozens of teams that rely on CL prize money but aren’t good enough to win it and qualify for this competition

[@adtastic1533]

Why should Europe give up it's favourite comp for some BS nobody cares about?

[@DontAttme]

​@@TheBake1986hell that's even punishing bigger teams like Barca who thrives more from Europe than la Liga... Even if the results don't mirror that.