FIFA’s Club World Cup Ambitions Clash With Domestics

FIFA has plans to raise the profile of the Club World Cup, and there is talk to switch it to a biennial tournament with the first edition to be in 2029. Powerhouse clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Napoli, are some of the key drivers of the proposal generated by enormous revenue no one would like to miss out these clubs. 2025 version entailed a dropdown of one billion dollars to the participating teams with Real Madrid and Chelsea sharing 82.5 and 114.6 million respectively.

The popularity of this season

The current President of FIFA Gianni Infantino is spearheading expansion and growing frequency on the basis of the unprecedented popularity of the tournament i.e. 2.5 million attendees and huge worldwide audience to support his vision of a greater world club competition. It is suggested that the number of teams should be expanded to 48 with a possible removal of the two team per country limit, even moving the event earlier in the year by removing the June international break.

What do the critics say?

And opposition is growing. The World Leagues Forum and player union FIFPro have presented legal challenges to FIFA on how the Club World Cup is being unilaterally scheduled in relation to the disruption to domestic leagues and welfare of players. UEFA and domestic league administrators such as the Premier League and La Liga have cautioned of the possibility of the changes overwhelming an already overloaded football calendar and the adverse impact on match competitiveness.

The legal controls imposed on FIFA are the modes of prearranged schedules that are currently only proposed to have the next one in 2029, with possible subsequent advancement in 2031. The next host countries are provisionally queued, Qatar, Spain, Morocco among others have registered interests to host the enlarged competition. Bolivia maps further demands adjustment to the timing and format of the competition, to match the 48 team model reflected in future men and women world cups.

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