FIFA Club World Cup 2025: Background
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Global Soccer Basics (Clubs & National Teams)
FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Introduction
This post will be about this new amuse bouche for the World Cup 2026 (the old amuse bouche was the FIFA Confederations Cup, but I’ll save that for another post in the future). FIFA in its infinite drive for greater profits (I think I’m legally supposed to say fundraising since it’s somehow a nonprofit) has decided to try and create / expand a second World Cup style tournament by getting involved in the Club side of the game.
For those who don’t know, a player generally plays on two teams at a time. Their club, which is their main employer (whom they play for the majority of the year) and then their national team (if they’re good enough to be selected for it, they play for them intermittently throughout the year). There are a lot of complicated rules about which national team you can play for, and for now I won’t get into it, but it’s basically where you’re a citizen of and once you play for the senior national team in a competitive fixture, you can never switch. The traditional World Cup stars national teams, pitting countries against one another. It was only a matter of time before FIFA wanted to replicate this success for a club competition.
Club competitions generally take place in the country (or region) where the club is located. For example, Borussia Dortmund plays weekly in the Bundesliga, a top tier league in Germany. There are also some regional tournaments, such as the UEFA Champions League, which the top teams from European leagues play in annually. Generally the majority of matches a club plays are in these domestic leagues and tournaments. Another example would be the New York Red Bull, they play in Canada and USA’s Major League Soccer, with top placing teams competing in the CONCACAF Champions League which is a smaller tournament against the rest of North and Central American club opponents.
When it comes to global club competition, this is often restricted to friendlies or exhibitions. Usually played in the US and Asia, top clubs will show up to expand global fanbases and make a bit of extra cash. Often in the US, we will receive promotional matches each summer featuring top European teams playing each other on our shores, but often with rotated squads as part of preseason training, and with very low stakes. Many organizers have long viewed this pre-season window as a potential revenue opportunity. But historically the summer has been reserved for international tournaments and summer breaks for players. FIFA’s World Cup is usually in this June / July window and in this capitalist expansionary period of global soccer growth, they want to set up the next big tournament.
History
The FIFA Club World Cup started in 2000, and after a weird hiatus for four years due to bad management, it has occurred annually since 2005. It usually is played in the winter, but due to the fixture congestion as it’s in the middle of the club domestic seasons, it has often held it as a strange abridged single elimination after-thought of a tournament. I could dive into this a lot more, but it’s dead now, with its final run in its old format in 2023; so I’ll just hit the broad points:
One club from each continent, plus one from the host country would qualify annually (usually by winning that region’s tournament from the year prior).
Due to the European and South American clubs being the strongest, they received a double bye. This was designed to reduce the number of fixtures they would be obliged to play, both to convince them to participate as well as not have incredibly lopsided matches.
The weakest two teams would play the first match, often Oceania and the host nation’s clubs; the winner would join the African, North American, and Asian champion clubs for a second round. Then those two remaining would play the aforementioned European and South American clubs; followed by a single final (and a throaway third place match).
Here is the Club World Cup 2023’s bracket hosted in Saudia Arabia:
As you can see from the above bracket, the European (Manchester City) semi-final and final only allowed for two rest days. While a very tight turnaround, this is also required simply because the window is so narrow for FIFA to get the European champions to participate. They played Premier League matches on December 16th and December 27th. As you can see by the scorelines, they absolutely demolished their opponents too.
The results of the tournament haven’t exactly been very interesting. 16 of the 20 editions has been won by the European entrant, and the remaining 4 have come from Brazil (the last time in 2012). Real Madrid, as expected, have won it the most.
These days the European entrant is expected to win, and for which they get $5M and a patch they can have added to their jersey for the next year. While it’s decent publicity (and prize money) for the smaller clubs, this mediocre tournament at best struggled to draw interest or viewership from anyone other than the teams participating and the host nation.
Club World Cup Prize Money
The winning team gets a patch like this on their jersey (which means another version they can sell for additional revenue)
The New Version and the 2025 Participants
So in 2017 the first real proposals start emerging to replace this lackluster annual tournament with one that would occur every four years. That format has worked very successfully for FIFA before. Originally pitched in 2019 for the inaugural tournament to be held 2021 and China to be the host, it was cancelled due to the pandemic. In 2023, it was announced that the USA would host in 2025. The tournament would be expanded to include 32 teams; playing a standard 4 team group stage (3 matches), followed by a single elimination bracket. The same format as the World Cups from 1998-2022.
The selection of the participating clubs gets a bit more complicated, but basically you win your continent’s regional tournament in one of the previous four years and you get in. e.g. for North America, the top regional tournament is the CONCACAF Champions League. Monterrey, Seattle, Leon, and Pachuca have won it for 2021-2024, and they will all get a berth.
Team Allocation
As you can see, there are still two clubs, yet to be allocated. South America’s will be decided via the Copa Libertadores, their final is on November 30th. It features three teams who could qualify via winning the tournament (Atlaetico Mineiro, Botafogo, and Penarol). I’ll be rooting for Penarol, as they would be the only entrant from Uruguay to participate in the Club World Cup. If River Plate wins (they’ve already qualified), then I believe the spot will go to Club Olimpia from Paraguay. So that would be cool too! Here are the semi-finals to watch.
BRA v. ARG and BRA v. URU
The final spot is that Host Nation slot. There are literally zero details currently on how this will be selected. However, it seems quite likely that it will be Inter Miami. They are selling the most / expensive tickets in the US for soccer, and they have the world’s best player (at least when he was younger). They’re top of the MLS right now, plus they won the Leagues Cup 2023 (another random made up tournament that has debuted recently). Neither competition is under CONCACAF’s control, so who knows what will happen or how it will be decided, but my guess is Inter Miami.
But as you can see from the above chart, Europe and South America that have more than 4 teams allocated for them, so in addition to the 4 UEFA Champions League winners, the highest ranking teams get included, but there’s a maximum of two clubs per country. Intended to diversify the entrants, this leads to an interesting matchmaking game. Chelsea and Manchester City have won the UEFA Champions League (Europe’s top competition) which effectively locks out any other English club. Real Madrid has won it twice in the four year period, so Atletico Madrid gets to sneak in as Spain’s second highest ranked team.
Because I have all of the time in the world late at night, I decided to review this methodology. UEFA produces a Club Coefficient to rank all of the teams in Europe, and I monitor it for other reasons (if all the clubs in a country do better then they can actually move the whole country’s league up and down, allocating more spots for the league to certain tournaments). I reviewed it and found errors, but it turned out FIFA didn’t like UEFA’s rankings, and just created their own version that justified their inclusions. The main difference is that they excluded the lower European competitions, I understand the logic, but I don’t think it produces the best results.
It should just be noted that AS Roma, Villareal, and Club Brugge got robbed. Yes, they’ve gotten a lot of their points via the Europa League, they should feel salty. But I suppose FIFA really wanted to get Atletico Madrid, Juventus, and FC Red Bull Salzburg into the mix. Overall they have bigger names / draws, and have more important people in their ownership groups. It also should be noted that Liverpool is the highest ranked team not attending the tournament.
When and Where
The tournament is scheduled to be played in the 2025 summer break, from June 15 to July 13. While the schedule isn’t currently released as of 10/1, we can make some assumptions. If you don’t know what the format will be, it will start with 8 groups of 4 teams for the Group Stage. Each team plays a guaranteed three games, with the top two in each group moving onto a single elimination tournament. That means 48 games in the Group Stage, 16 per matchday; followed by a 16 team knockout tournament. So 63 or 64 games (depending if they do a third place game, which they probably will). This is what I imagine the schedule will look like.
The grey dates are when I'll probably be away, so it sounds like I've gotta try for the Group Stage and Semi-Finals and Final
Lastly there are the 12 stadiums. In order to avoid the typically scheduled CONCACAF Gold Cup, they pushed that tournament to the west coast, and this one almost entirely on the east coast, with the exception of Seattle (Their team qualified via CONCACAF Champions League, so they might as well play in their home stadium) and the Rose Bowl… for some unknown reason. They’re not included in the World Cup, so it isn’t even a test run, just inconvenient. It’s possible that a Los Angeles team will be selected to be the USA Host Team, or that they’re going to rely on the international metropolis that is LA to be a great place for some popular Central / South American teams to be based for ticket sales. MetLife in New Jersey will be hosting the final. You can bet I’ll be trying to get tickets for that. Interestingly only one stadium has a roof, Atlanta, so most will be exposed to the heat and precipitation in the American summer. A risk that has had FIFA officials worried about for the World Cup in 2026 too. A good “dry” run!
4 of the stadiums are smaller MLS fields (Orlando, Nashville, Cincinnati, and Washington DC), and so they’ll probably host the smaller clubs. Orlando will actually use two stadiums, so it makes me think Florida will be a major hub for Central / South American teams (again, makes sense given the demographic make up of that state. Here are the stadiums by capacity.
Here’s a breakdown of average attendance for the 30 qualified teams. For Auckland City, Al Ain, Al Ahly, Esperance Tunis, Mamelodi Sundowns, and Wydad AC attendance figures were hard to track down, so I estimated based on whatever was available. But these are likely some of the smallest attendances anyway. I also focused on domestic league attendance, not exhibitions or other tournaments. I’ve marked them in light blue in the charts.
Here’s some American context, NFL average is ~70,000, MLB is ~29,000, MLS is ~22,000, NBA is ~18,000, and NHL is ~17,000. I did see that for a lot of the Asian and African teams, that the ones participating are not necessarily the teams with the best attendance records, but I’m hopeful that fans of the league and maybe just of that ethnicity will support the team and purchase tickets. Full stadiums are better. Lower prices and sell tickets. This chart is attendance, the second one is percentage of capacity.
Most of the data comes from TransferMarkt, a great website for soccer data.
This is the attendance data shown as a percentage of capacity; take this with a grain of salt since the stadium capacity data could be incorrect.
Issues
FIFPRO (the major global union of professional players) has expressed concerns about player welfare. As an avid soccer fan, I’m inclined to agree with them. There are too many matches every season for players to play their best and not get injured. But as long as soccer is ruled by capitalism, we’ll see more and more ways to monetise it. Matches are getting longer (stoppage time has recently increased dramatically to combat time wasting), seasons are longer (Europe’s Champions League just added two to four fixtures in the group stage) and off season tournaments are longer (Euro’s and World Cup added another round of games)..
In 2021-2022, Liverpool played every game they were eligible for, 63 competitive fixtures in 42 weeks. That’s basically two-a-weeks for the whole season. That’s a lot of minutes to be playing, and it isn’t good for player safety and career longevity (not to even mention match quality). Below is an excerpt from FIFPRO, and attached is a link to the full document which has a lot of great background, visuals, and data regarding this issue.
While the data is cherry picked and certainly has a biased origin, their is plenty of truth in their position
A smaller issue is simply that the USA is simultaneously hosting a regional International tournament called the Gold Cup (national teams throughout Central and North America compete in it). This was relatively solved by putting the Gold Cup in the western part of the USA and the Club World Cup in the eastern part. I don’t entirely mind this, since I don’t care much for the Gold Cup (a lopsided tournament that occurs too often with not enough stakes).
To counter concerns of top teams not prioritizing the tournament or even attending, FIFA is promising pretty large sums to clubs for participation. As mentioned earlier, the winning team was previously making $5M USD, but in this new tournament they could be making upwards of $100M. Participating could earn a club tens of millions of dollars. These are unconfirmed, which makes sense, since there is another big issue regarding a lack of a global broadcaster.
FIFA was in discussion for weeks with Apple to be the global broadcaster, but reports indicated that Apple would only offer 25% ($1B USD) of what FIFA values the media rights to be. As of 9/29 they still don’t have anyone locked up for it. Broadcasting is the single largest revenue stream for FIFA, so they need to resolve this to fund the tournament and get sponsorships on board. Most broadcasters seem to want to see what the public’s interest in the tournament will be before getting involved and committing large funds to it. They seem more interested in bidding for the 2029 Club World Cup, than 2025. However, FIFA does have a pretty large cash reserve of an estimated $4B USD, so they could just brute force this forward.
Current Status
It somehow isn’t currently clear if this tournament will actually happen. Less than a year left, and there are remarkably few details. While the regional organizations seem to be quiet about it, some of the top European leagues (La Liga, Spain) and player associations (PFA - England, AIC - Italy, & UNPF - France) have started filing legal injunctions to prevent the tournament from moving forward. It may be too little too late at this point. Only time will tell. FIFA seems to be continuing regardless; and at the very least, the non-European teams will be probably participate.
What I’m Excited For (Pros)
World Champion. Previously it felt very weak to be proclaimed a World Champion after beating two teams, this is the best opportunity for a club (Real Madrid) to have the best claim to that title.
4 Year Cycle for the Club World Cup instead of Annually. This is more exciting for fans, players, and clubs than the current iteration.
Location. A short term pro and I’m biased, I have a chance to go to many of the matches with minimal travel and expense. Plus, I’m certainly going to try for the Final, which will be in New Jersey. Based on the success / demand it may continue to be a test event for the World Cup host (Spain, Portugal, and Morocco are interested in bidding for 2029, they host the World Cup in 2030), or if it will be truly bid out to anyone.
Global Participation and Exposure. The soccer world is biased, we focus on the biggest clubs and players and they’re often in Europe, but one of the best parts of soccer is the global appeal. And it is genuinely incredible that many teams from across the globe get to participate in a meaningful and interesting demonstration of talents and styles. This is an immense opportunity for clubs to find new supporters and audiences. You can basically guarantee that I’ll be purchasing some jerseys for some new clubs next year. The trickle down economics could actually be a good transfer of wealth.
Unique Competition. I really enjoy both single elimination tournaments and the unknowable challenge of teams that rarely, if ever, have been compared (let alone competed) with each other. This leads to a high potential of upsets and great narratives. I expect a lot from this tournament.
What I’m Worried About (Cons)
Player Safety / Overscheduling. Hopefully teams manage minutes of their starters and rotate, using a lot of their squad players, but given the nature of competition (particularly amongst athletes’ short term priorities), it is unlikely. Add in vastly different skillsets (looking at you Auckland City FC) and there could be some reckless play. Let’s hope for moderate weather and safe play.
Pricing. No announcements have been made about the pricing structure, but there’s a high likelihood it will be a cash grab. That said, we’re less than a year away from the tournament and there have been no guarantees that it will even go forward, so perhaps… however unlikely, they may just try and sell tickets and fill stadiums to make sure the inaugural tournament is a success.
Upsetting Local Competitions. The prize money being discussed is tens millions of dollars for even participating. This would give the participating clubs (outside of Europe) a huge financial advantage over their regional competitors.
Tournament Quality. Top teams may not attend or respect the tournament, restricting their best (most valuable) players from participating to mitigate risk. This would hurt the reputation of the tournament, thereby limiting its competitive and commercial appeal, but may be still a huge benefit to the rest of the clubs who would take it seriously. Similar to the Europa / Europa Conference Leagues, and if you talk to supporters and players of recent winners of those, they definitely care.
4 Year Qualification Cycle. Qualifiers for other tournaments usually happen within 1-2 years of the tournament, but this is over the course of 4 years. e.g. Chelsea, it feels kind of strange that they get to participate in a tournament in 2025, for winning the Champions League in 2021. They now have a different owner and manager, and only 2 of the same players from that squad. Doesn’t really feel like this squad deserves to participate.
How to Get Tickets and Next Steps
As of 9/30/2024, there are no tickets (or even schedule yet). However you can register for their newsletter / notifications and at least create a FIFA account to be ready to apply for tickets. Here’s the link. The schedule / match draw is planned to be held in December 2024
I recommend getting tickets for Matchday 3 and the Quarter Finals. Those are usually the best value. Early Group Stage matchdays tend to be low energy. Round of 16 tends to have lopsided fixtures because of the seeding. But at the end of the day, get what you can get!
Also please support my friends’ (Yoni, Elad, and Yoseph) business, Sangalo (which is slang for bicycle kick in Nigeria). Their goal is to showcase and support some of the most exciting and unique football clubs on the planet, by providing access to their jerseys stateside. Here is their YouTube page, to follow the stories and learn about these clubs. Particularly relevant for the Club World Cup.