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Fifa’s expanded competition will run across the summer of 2025 and has drawn much criticism
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Chelsea and Man City lead English interest in next year’s Club World Cup to fill the void next summer despite no European Championship or World Cup. Fifa has found yet another way to shoehorn more fixtures into the calendar and keep squads busy during the off-season.
The expanded Fifa Club World Cup will take place, hosted in Miami and with no fewer than 32 teams taking part across almost a month of action – something several players have already spoken out against in an increasingly congested line of work. Enzo Maresca and Pep Guardiola’s side represent the Premier League, having recently lifted Champions League titles in the Uefa zone, while Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are among the other European sides involved. From around the rest of the world, the likes of Urawa Red Diamonds from Japan, Mexico’s Monterrey and Brazilian quartet Flamengo, Fluminense, Palmeiras and Botafogo are all competing – as are the big two from Argentina.
The draw for the group stage takes place on Thursday and clubs will find out their first three opponents, with eight groups leading the top two in each to go to the round of 16 and beyond in the knockout stage. Follow the buildup and Club World Cup main draw in our live blog below:
Aha, some relevance. A new trophy is being unveiled! Gianni Infantino left the stage about 30 seconds ago, now he comes back on stage with Ronaldo – the real one – to unveil the trophy.
A dark cover is lifted off and the new Club World Cup trophy is displayed – it’s pretty big, very round and looks to be engraved with different areas of the world and a lot of other stuff.
“This is completely new trophy and I’ve asked why they didn’t do this one before! It’ll be amazing, 32 teams to be the best, big money for the clubs and this beautiful trophy. For the captains to lift it will be tough!” Ronaldo says.
“It’s a unique, iconic trophy,” Infantino says. “Different languages, the history is written there, the moon positions of the first matches and names of all clubs and confederations – everything is engraved for entenity.”
Now the promo video, the intro with teams and goals and all that jazz, with a dramatic voice overlay telling us what to expect. New rivalries will be forged, places in history will be claimed. A star studded cast battling for eternal glory. So on and so forth.
Honestly, we’ll be there soon with the actual draw. Presumably.
Oh my word. Infantino introduces a special video which starts with…Donald Trump.
“I know him as ‘Johnny’, he’s a winner and a president, I’m a president, soccer is going through the roof as everyone knows. Barron is a very big fan and a very good player,” the incoming US chief tells us.
“I was very responsible in getting [the World Cup],” he adds.
Back on stage, Infantino thanks Ivanka Trump and family for being in place.
Perhaps we’ll get to the football shortly.
“Something was missing,” Infantino says. “Something to show us who the best club in the world is.”
Isn’t that what the InterContinental Cup was for and all the smaller versions of this competition? Apparently not.
“Now we have it,” he assures us.
Infantino thanks DAZN – the broadcasters for the competition – for their “historic” agreement. The matches will all be screened live and free to air.
We have indeed started…with a music video highlighting Miami and Fifa. “Football unites the world” appears to be one of the big messages, along with Fifa knows how to party. Great stuff, really top.
Emilio Estefan, a Cuban-American producer who was involved with the video, is on stage to explain…well, why it happened.
Samantha Johnson is our host and she’s getting us properly underway now, inviting Gianni Infantino on stage to talk about “the Miami vibe”. “Football or soccer, call it as you want,” he invites us. Magical.
A quick reminder of the clubs, their pots and all the badges you never knew you needed to know.
Fifa assure us their programme for the draw will start at 18.00 which is great, but also not so great, as that has already come and gone without sign of a start.
Perhaps a sign of things to come in a tournament which is trying to force itself to be bigger than many hold it as.
In Europe, we should probably limit that too – South American sides and fans have long enjoyed participation and victory in this competition in all its guises, from the InterContinental Cup and the previous Club World Cup iteration and through to now.
We are just about there for go-time and the draw lies ahead of us. Will Fifa break with the usual trend and forgo video montages, self-congratulatory speeches and terrible one-liners that nobody thinks are funny?
They might, but we shouldn’t expect they will.
It is a football draw, after all.
The first edition of Fifa’s new Club World Cup format will take place at the end of this season from 15 June until 13 July.
Football’s governing body has sought to ramp up interest in a competition that is currently considered little more than a footnote on the European campaign, with the Champions League winners often facing a trip across the globe against vastly undermatched opposition.
The last 11 iterations have been won by Europe’s representatives, with Brazilian club Corinthians interrupting the monopoly by beating Chelsea in 2012. Fifa is aiming to reignite interest, expanding the seven-team tournament into a controversial 32-team spectacle that will significantly impact competing clubs’ time for recovery.
Here’s everything you need to know.
A vastly expanded competition is set to play havoc on the club football schedule
Fifa finally announced a first sponsor for its revamped Club World Cup a month ago in a deal that will brand video review checks at the tournament in the United States next year.
Chinese consumer electronics firm Hisense will have “branding appearing in the video operation room and on pitchside screens,” Fifa said in a statement, when match officials study key incidents in the 32-team tournament being played in 11 American cities from June 15 to July 13.
Though no previous Fifa tournament has had a sponsor for video reviews since the technology was approved before the men’s 2018 World Cup in Russia, Hisense was the official “VAR Screen Provider” for this year’s European Championship organised by Uefa in Germany.
Fifa did not specify the value of the deal sealed with Infantino at a signing ceremony in Shanghai.
Reviews of referee decisions in key incidents — for goals, penalty awards and red cards — can extend to at least two minutes, despite Fifa’s aim during trials in 2016 of completing checks in about 10 seconds.
Hisense first signed up as a Fifa sponsor for the 2018 World Cup and it renewed for the 2022 edition in Qatar.
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