Winners
Fifa: The world’s governing body had hoped to gain more of a foothold in the club game with the expanded version of this tournament. Now that it has taken place without major disruption or mass protest, chances are it won’t go away any time soon. In many respects, that alone is mission accomplished – Fifa now runs a property that will allow it to control the global profile of some of the world’s biggest soccer properties, which had been mostly out of its reach. There are also plenty of positive storylines Fifa can pick to tout (more than 2.4m cumulative attendance and any number of highlights on the field), even if some of those are balanced out by some less flattering realities (more than 1.5m empty seats).
