It’s FIFA’s shiny new toy and the brainchild of the body’s president, Gianni Infantino.
Yet the inaugural 32-team Club World Cup, which will take place in the United States next summer, will begin without a number of European football heavyweights and the participation of many football stars is far from expected. be guaranteed.
Barcelona’s 4-1 home defeat to Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday, condemning them to a 6-4 aggregate exit from the Champions League quarter-finals, means they join a list of permanent absentees that includes already Manchester United, Liverpool and AC Milan. Arsenal will also be out after being knocked out of the Champions League by Bayern Munich.
Rather than Barca, it will be fellow Spaniards Atletico Madrid who will play, although they also featured in the Champions League last 16 against Borussia Dortmund. With Atletico’s ranking coefficient being higher than Barcelona’s, they become the 22nd club to qualify.
Liverpool, United, Milan and Barcelona will not be at the 2025 Club World Cup party between June 15 and July 13 next year, as will Cristiano Ronaldo, then 40, now from Saudi club Al Nassr, while It remains to be seen whether Lionel Messi, who will turn 38 during the tournament, and his MLS team Inter Miami will be on the invite list.
So, with some of the world’s most decorated clubs and many of the individual footballers with the greatest commercial potential failing to book their place, what does this mean for the new competition?
“The Premier League is one of the few leagues that is still capable of having significant value and this has extended to the success of the Champions League,” said Paolo Pescatore, founder and analyst in technology, media and telecommunications at PP Foresight. “Everyone wants to get in on the action and because of that you’ve seen a huge influx of money through sponsorships.
“If some of these teams, players and coaches don’t participate in a tournament like this, that has a significant knock-on effect on the value of those rights and on spectators, because it obviously impacts sponsorship and the flow of advertising dollars It doesn’t get off to a good start if you don’t have some of the best clubs.
“The absence of three of the four biggest names in club football doesn’t help matters”
Infantino was eager to bring FIFA, world football’s governing body, into men’s club football, no doubt with an envious eye on the money made by its European equivalent, UEFA, via its three annual club competitions : the Champions League, the Europa League and the Europa Conference. League. Ambitious targets have been set by FIFA for sponsorship and revenue at the new Club World Cup, but nothing has yet been confirmed in terms of prize money or television rights.
Is it harder to sell the competition when so many big names are going to be missing out?
“It’s hard to see this happening, to be honest,” said David Murray, a sports rights consultant. “By bringing in all these (additional) teams, you might get a few decent games, but it still has the feel of a pre-season tournament rather than a major event. The fact that you’re missing three of the four biggest names in club football doesn’t help matters.
“With the best will in the world, Manchester City and Chelsea are not Manchester United and Liverpool in terms of global notoriety, and Barcelona is also a huge failure. Apart from the semi-finals and the final, is it okay really interest people?
The timing of the event is also a factor, given that it is moving into the traditional “summer tournament” space, instead of being held in the old position of the Club World Cup in December or January – midway through the European soccer seasons – and that it takes place in the United States while the domestic elite, Major League Soccer, is underway with its February to December seasons.
Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City, along with other Premier League teams, are also already scheduled to play pre-season matches in the United States this summer, while concerns have been raised over the Club World Cup over player welfare, given an increasingly congested footballing calendar.
“It will be interesting to see which team someone like Pep Guardiola chooses for Manchester City,” added Murray. “Is he really going to risk his best players getting injured? Or will it offer them a real summer break? Especially when its rivals potentially don’t have that as a problem. If Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland won’t play much (in the Club World Cup), it’s starting to look more like a friendly match again.
“It’s also just after the Champions League (this competition has its final at the end of May or beginning of June) and if the winner of that don’t play, that would also look weird.
“It looks like pay TV filler. I don’t see him getting wall-to-wall coverage. This isn’t really a game changer for TV subscribers, it might help retain people as summer is often the time they lose people when there’s no football, but it certainly won’t. not attract additional subscribers, I don’t think.”
Steve Martin, a sports marketing expert, said Athleticism: “It’s a global thing, so it’s definitely going to dilute the business impact without these teams present.
“But this event is in its early stages and I think what they will try to do is integrate this into other packages, like the World Cup; it won’t just be a pure standalone sometimes. Will fans stop everything to tune into this? There’s a lot to do to compete, so it feels like an add-on rather than a destination for fans where they can’t wait to see it.
“The flip side is that this could open doors for other markets to compete against teams from around the world. There is commercial value, otherwise they wouldn’t do it. A lot depends on what they do with it over time and how big they want to make it.
Asked which European heavyweights will miss out, FIFA said it demonstrated the competition was a fair system, provided greater opportunities for other teams and was a chance to grow the game across the world.
So who will be at the 2025 Club World Cup?
The expanded FIFA tournament for men’s football will feature clubs from each of the world’s six confederations, with Europe providing 12 of the 32 teams. It will take place every four years, the year before the Men’s World Cup.
Chelsea, Real Madrid and Manchester City automatically qualified for Europe as the last three UEFA Champions League winners during the four-year cycle. Also from Europe came Bayern, Paris Saint-Germain, Inter Milan, Porto, Dortmund, Benfica, Juventus, Red Bull Salzburg and now Atletico, via the coefficient ranking route (based on these rankings over four years).
CONMEBOL (South America) will have six of the 32 teams, while AFC (Asia) will have four, as will CAF (Africa) and CONCACAF (North, Central America and the Caribbean). OFC (Oceania) will have one participant, while the host country – the United States next year – will have one more. They will qualify either as winners of their confederation’s first interclub competition between 2021 and 2024, or through its club ranking during this same period.
The teams from these regions who have already reserved their place are Palmeiras, Flamengo, Fluminense (all Brazil), Al Ahly (Egypt), Wydad Casablanca (Morocco), Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia), Urawa Red Diamonds (Japan), Monterrey, Club Leon (both Mexico), Seattle Sounders (United States) and Auckland City (New Zealand).
At the tournament, teams play in eight groups of four, three matches each as in the World Cup and European Championship, before a single-leg knockout stage to decide who qualifies as world champion .
It should be noted that the current seven-team format of the Club World Cup will still be played each year under a different name: the Intercontinental Cup.
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(Top photo: Adria Puig/Anadolu via Getty Images)