Carlo Ancelotti had claimed that Real Madrid would boycott FIFA’s new look Club World Cup but the Italian has since changed his tune with the Spanish club adamant they will compete
Carlo Ancelotti has committed a quick u-turn on his and Real Madrid's FIFA Club World Cup plans – insisting his original words were misinterpreted.
FIFA have announced that they've revamped their own tournament, which includes champion clubs from around the globe. 32 teams will now compete in a four-week tournament held in the USA, which has a huge prize fund available.
The concern though is the additional strain it places on players and how it fits into an already congested fixture schedule. Several club chiefs have come out and floated the idea of boycotting the tournament and Ancelotti appeared to be one of them when he said "FIFA can forget it" in an interview.
Real, who've just claimed another Champions League title, have since come out and underlined their enthusiasm at featuring in the new look competition with Ancelotti quickly changing his tune on social media.
The Italian said in a statement: "In my interview with Il Giornale, my words about the FIFA Club World Cup were not interpreted in the way I intended. Nothing could be further from my interest than to reject the possibility of playing in a tournament that I consider could be a great opportunity to continue fighting for big titles with Real Madrid."
That came after the Spanish giants had said: "Real Madrid would like to announce that at no time has there been any question regarding our participation in the new Club World Cup to be organised by Fifa in the coming 2024/2025 season.
"Our club will therefore take part, as planned, in this official competition and we are proud and excited to be involved in it and we will once again inspire our millions of fans all over the world with another trophy."
In Ancelotti's original interview he suggested that Real – and others – would snub the tournament. "FIFA can forget it, footballers and clubs will not participate in that tournament," he said. "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."
Manchester City and Chelsea are two English clubs poised to feature in FIFA's tournament due to them winning the Champions League recently. City chief Ferran Soriano has said: "We have to decide what’s most important, starting with the health of the players. We have got into a spiral where everyone is defending each business and we can’t go on like this."
FIFA have refused to back down regarding their new look tournament, saying it was “fully within its rights” to set the parameters of the competition.
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