FIFA this morning announced the creation of a new men’s Club World Cup, due to start in 2025 and featuring 32 of “the best teams in the world”.
At a press conference, FIFA president Gianni Infantino revealed the details of a meeting of the world governing body’s organising council this morning.
FIFA have long wanted to expand the Club World Cup to create a domestic competition to rival UEFA’s Champions League. The former currently features just seven teams, comprising the winners of each confederation’s premier trophy, including the Champions League winners. Chelsea are the current holders, after beating Brazilian club Palmeiras in February.
Infantino said: “As you will remember, we had agreed a few years ago to have a new men’s Club World Cup with 24 teams. This should have taken place in 2021 [but] was postponed because of Covid.
“The new men’s Club World Cup will therefore take place in 2025 and will feature 32 teams, the best teams in the world. Of course, the details of that still need to be discussed and agreed, but the 32-team tournament will go ahead, making it really like a World Cup.”
He added: “We had a Club World Cup planned in 2020 with 24 teams. It wasn’t replaced or postponed. We did that to allow for the Copa America and the Euros and protect the health and well-being of players and not overburden the calendar."
Infantino also confirmed that World Cup semi-finalists Morocco have been chosen to host next year’s Club World Cup and said there would also be a new Women’s Club World Cup, but did not specify a potential start date.
He also announced the launch of a FIFA World Series, saying: “The importance of having matches between national teams of different continents more regularly, the idea of that, the principle, was agreed and elaborated on.
“[The plan] is to use the March windows in the even years, the World Cup years, the Euros years and the Copa America years, and organise friendly tournaments between four teams from four different confederations, so that way everyone can gain this experience of playing each other, under of course, the FIFA umbrella, so the FIFA World Series type of events.”
Despite the many controversies around the World Cup, Infantino described the tournament “as a really incredible success” and revealed that FIFA had accrued revenues of $7.5billion (£6.2bn) for this four-year World Cup cycle, $1bn (£820m) more than the previous one, despite the impact of the pandemic.
“I think this is quite remarkable,” Infantino said. “The FIFA council approved a budget of $11bn (£9bn) revenues in the next four-year cycle.”
Infantino claimed that the controversial timing of this mid-season World Cup had led to better football rather than "at the end of an exhausting season" for players.
"For me the World Cup has been a real incredible success, on all fronts," he said. "The main one the fans, bringing people together, meeting the Arab world, is very important for the future of all of us. But also when it comes to the matches."
He revealed the top countries who had visited Qatar were Saudi Arabai, India, the USA, the UK and Mexico.
