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CLUB WORLD CUP

Morocco’s Wydad Casablanca, Ahly to represent Africa at expanded 32-team FIFA Club World Cup

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The United States will host the Club World Cup in 2025, the first time the FIFA tournament will have 32 teams. Already assured of slots are two African clubs, Wydad Casablanca of Morocco and Ahly of Egypt.

They join  Real Madrid, Manchester City and Chelsea who also already earned places as recent UEFA Champions

Other teams already qualified for the 2025 Club World Cup are: Palmeiras (Brazil), Flamengo (Brazil), Monterrey (Mexico), Leon (Mexico),  Urawa Red Diamonds (Japan) and Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia)

League winners for the expanded tournament lineup that is set to test stadiums and operations one year before the 2026 World Cup.

The United States will host the men’s World Cup with Canada and Mexico, and FIFA could yet give some Club World Cup games to those countries.

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The Club World Cup will take place in June-July 2025. The United States was chosen as host Friday during an online meeting of the FIFA Council.

FIFA praised “the United States’ position as a proven leader in staging global events and because it would allow FIFA to maximize synergies with the delivery” of the 2026 tournament.

The Seattle Sounders also are in the lineup for the Club World Cup as the 2022 champion of North American soccer region CONCACAF. The Americans should get another entry as the host nation.

Storied European teams have visited the United States for preseason friendly games for years but the expanded club tournament will give fans a rare chance to see 12 of them play competitive games.

FIFA said in March the basic qualification path for clubs was to win a continental championship in any of the four years from 2021 to 2024 in the five main confederations: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America.

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Europe with 12 teams and South America with six are the only continents with more than four entries. Extra places should be awarded according to team rankings by results a four-year span in continental competitions.

The current seven-team Club World Cup for continental champions played every season creates little broad appeal and FIFA has long wanted to stage a full-sized tournament every four years.

This expanded version in 2025 is a huge commercial opportunity for FIFA to try new broadcasting models and sign new sponsors, funding hundreds of millions of dollars in prize money for the clubs.

The influential European Club Association said in March it hoped for talks with FIFA on how to manage the commercial rights.

The format for a Club World Cup lasting about three weeks has yet to be decided. One option is guaranteeing the 32 teams at least three games each playing in eight groups of four. The eight group winners could then advance to the quarterfinals. That would create a tournament of 56 games if a third-place game was included.

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The current annual Club World Cup format will continue with a final edition scheduled for December in Saudi Arabia.

Reviving the Club World Cup was a priority for FIFA president Gianni Infantino on being elected in 2016, but his first project plan was blocked. A Saudi-linked $25 billion deal with Japanese technology investor SoftBank provoked anger from European soccer officials who saw it as secretive and an overreach by FIFA.

FIFA got agreement in 2019 for a 24-team event to launch in June 2021 in China, but that was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic before commercial details had been confirmed.

FIFA came back with a fresh Club World Cup plan after the Super League project led by an elite group of clubs quickly failed in April 2021 while causing intense turmoil for European soccer body UEFA.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

CLUB WORLD CUP

New Jersey awarded 2025 Club World Cup final

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Sep 8, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; Fans display an American flag on the field before the game between the New York Giants and the Minnesota Vikings at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images/File Photo

The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup final will be held at the New Jersey home of the NFL’s New York Giants and New York Jets, world soccer’s governing body announced on Saturday along with the venue lineup for the revamped tournament.

The expanded 32-team tournament, which will feature leading clubs from around the world, will be held in 12 stadiums around the United States next year from June 15-July 13.

The open-air stadium for the final, which opened in 2010 and has a capacity of 82,500, held the Copa America Centenario final in 2016 when Chile denied Lionel Messi’s Argentina for a second time in a penalty shootout.

The venue was also announced earlier this year as the site of the 2026 World Cup final.

The other venues, mostly a mix of NFL and Major League Soccer stadiums, are in Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington and two in Orlando.

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The Club World Cup will have eight groups of four with the top two teams from each group advancing to the single-match knockout stage from the round of 16 to the final.

FIFPRO’s European member unions have started legal action against FIFA over the Club World Cup due to concerns over the impact of a crammed calendar on players’ health and performance.

-Reuters

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CLUB WORLD CUP

FIFA names 12 stadiums set to stage historic FIFA Club World Cup 2025

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 28: Gianni Infantino and Hugh Jackman speak onstage during the Global Citizen Festival 2024 in Central Park on September 28, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Global Citizen) Copyright 2024 Getty Images

Twelve stadiums have been announced as venues for the expanded Club World Cup holding in the United States next year. There will be 32 clubs in attendance – a far departure from the regular  eight.

The tournament kicks off on Sunday, 15 June 2025, with all roads leading to the MetLife Stadium in New York.

The final match will be in New Jersey on Sunday, 13 July 2025, just over a year before the venue stages the FIFA World Cup 26 final.

This venue is joined by 11 more – Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta), Bank of America Stadium (Charlotte), TQL Stadium (Cincinnati), Rose Bowl Stadium (Los Angeles), Hard Rock Stadium (Miami), GEODIS Park (Nashville), Camping World Stadium (Orlando), Inter&Co Stadium (Orlando), Lincoln Financial Field (Philadelphia), Lumen Field (Seattle), and Audi Field (Washington, D.C.).

“The FIFA Club World Cup 2025 will feature 12 fantastic stadiums where a new chapter in football’s global history will be written by great players from the 32 best clubs in the world,”  Infantino, the FIFA president stated.

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 “This new FIFA competition is the only true example in worldwide club football of real solidarity and inclusivity, allowing the best clubs from Africa, Asia, Central and North America and Oceania to play the powerhouses of Europe and South America in an incredible new World Cup which will impact enormously the growth of club football and talent globally.

“This is about opportunity and hope for those who need it most, and also about prestige and true football for those who make our sport shine.” 

With the draw set for December, just two of the 32 teams are yet to be confirmed: one from South America, the other representing the host country.

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CLUB WORLD CUP

SHOCKER! Real Madrid pull out of Club World Cup

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Champions League - Final - Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain - June 1, 2024 Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti celebrates with the trophy after winning the Champions League REUTERS/Hannah Mckay

The expanded FIFA Club World Cup which has put the organisation of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in disarray, is beginning to crumble.

Cup holders, Real Madrid, have indicated their intention not to participate.

Earlier on, the umbrella body of professional footballers has also frowned at the fixtures congestion which the novel competition appears to have caused.

According to Reuters’ report, Real Madrid will decline FIFA’s invitation to participate in the Club World Cup as the governing body have undervalued the compensation the 15-times Champions League winners should receive, manager Carlo Ancelotti said.

FIFA’s revamped international tournament, with 32 teams, is set to take place in the United States at the end of next season, with Europe’s best-ranked 12 clubs among those invited.

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Ancelotti, one of the most successful football managers in Europe, has won the Club World Cup three times and the Champions League five times.

“FIFA can forget it, footballers and clubs will not participate in that tournament,” Ancelotti told Italian daily Il Giornale in an interview published on Monday to coincide with his 65th birthday.

“A single Real Madrid match is worth 20 million and FIFA wants to give us that amount for the whole cup. Negative. Like us, other clubs will refuse the invitation.”

Ancelotti, who led Real to a Champions League and LaLiga double last season, said there had been a lot of pressure on managers lately but he had managed to stay passionate about his job.

“I see nothing particularly new, this has always been our job but the case of (former Liverpool manager Juergen) Klopp is significant. The pressure continues, the burden of responsibility becomes too heavy, obsession takes over,” he said.

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“I keep my passion, that’s how I live the match, the game, my job; I’ve always carried this balance with me. I’ve overcome moments that weren’t always positive; after my experience with Everton I was off the radar, they thought I was finished, I was old.”

With all three European club competitions expanded to 36 teams from next season, the Club World Cup has come under scrutiny for saturating the football calendar.

In May, FIFA said they would not consider rescheduling their 32-team Club World Cup after global players’ union FIFPRO and the World Leagues Association (WLA) threatened legal action if they did not review their plans.

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