FIFA is planning to radically revamp and make its current version of the men’s Club World Cup a 32-team affair in 2025, as announced by its president Gianni Infantino on the eve of the World Cup final between Argentina and France.
“The new men’s Club World Cup will take place in 2025 and will feature 32 teams… making it like the current World Cup,” said Infantino at the time. While there are not many concrete details regarding the proposal, it is believed that the USA is the frontrunner for hosting the tournament.
At present, the six continental cup winners from as many FIFA confederations and the league champions from the host nation go head-to-head in a very short tournament every season.
However, there was a precedent for such a revelatory declaration. In 2018, the FIFA Council greenlighted the proposal for a new 24-team Club World Cup, and the pilot tournament was all set to be held in China between June and July 2021. This project – where eight European, six South American, three North American, Asian, and African teams and one from Oceanian would have featured – couldn’t proceed per plan because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Similar to the previous arrangement, according to Infantino, the new 32-team tournament will be held once in four years in the same window where the now-discarded Confederations Cup used to be played, a year before the men’s World Cup.
It is understood that FIFA has devised and declared this plan without any prior formal proposals to or agreements with domestic leagues.
Back in 2021, Premier League’s position vis-a-vis the international match calendar post-2024 was staunchly against “any radical changes” that “adversely affect player welfare and threaten the competitiveness, calendar, structures and traditions of domestic football,” as communicated by Richard Masters, chief executive of the Premier League.
Through the World Leagues Form (WLF), the Premier League wishes to have an “open…engagement with FIFA”. It expects that the “process [of bringing reform] should also involve meaningful agreements with the leagues that provide the foundations for the game.”
Concerns and criticism regarding the decision
The exact particulars concerning the entire project are minimal and they present more questions than solutions. It is highly likely that this ambitious project will untowardly poke various stakeholders, especially in Europe, disturbing their pre-set calendars and structures.
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