This Saturday night, with the match between Inter Miami and Al Ahly from Egypt, the first Club World Cup that will be contested with 32 teams, in the United States. FIFA’s new creation by Gianni Infantino, which has been criticized for the overload of matches for players, aims to be a global competition, with footballers and teams from as many countries as possible.
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This leads to the creation of a complicated classification system for Europe and South America, which ultimately resulted in the recent champions of the top three leagues in the world not being present in the tournament: Liverpool from England, Barcelona from Spain, and Napoli from Italy.
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The reasons that left Liverpool and Barcelona out of the World Cup
FIFA gave 12 spots to UEFA and six to Conmebol, therefore, the last four champions of the main continental club tournament plus the best ranked teams in a special ranking qualified.
But there was a restriction: a maximum of two teams per federation, with the exception for the champions of the Champions League and the Copa Libertadores.
Therefore, only Chelsea (2021 Champions League winner) and Manchester City (2023 winner) will represent England, which prevented Liverpool from qualifying, despite finishing eighth in the special ranking that took into account performances in European tournaments over the last four years.
In the case of Spain, Real Madrid qualified for the 2022 Champions title and will be joined by Atlético de Madrid, ranked 10th in the UEFA rankings. Barcelona finished 12th in this table and could have also qualified, but the two Madrid teams filled the two spots from the Spanish federation.
Something similar happened to Napoli, ranked 15th in the UEFA, below Inter Milan (7th) and Juventus (14th).
These restrictions allowed the last European spot to be taken by Red Bull Salzburg from Austria, ranked 18th in the UEFA special table.
Why did four Brazilian teams qualify?
Brazil will be the federation with the highest representation in the Club World Cup with four teams because Palmeiras, Flamengo, Fluminense, and Botafogo won the last four Copa Libertadores, respectively.
This harmed Atlético Mineiro from Belo Horizonte, ranked 3rd in Conmebol, and allowed the qualification of the Argentine teams River Plate (4th) and Boca Juniors (6th).
The contradictions of FIFA
However, as is often the case with FIFA, the rules tend to be reinterpreted for their own interests, and that’s what happened in Concacaf.
The confederation had four spots plus one for a team from the United States as the host, which was given without any sporting merit to Inter Miami solely because of Lionel Messi’s popularity.
The problem arose when FIFA eliminated León from Mexico, the champion of the 2023 Concacaf Champions Cup, for violating the multiple ownership rule by having the same owner as Pachuca.
In response to this, a playoff was generated between América and Los Angeles FC, even though Mexico already has its two spots filled by Monterrey and Pachuca, and the same was true for the United States with Seattle Sounders and Inter Miami.
Finally, LAFC won 2-1 against the “Eagles” in that match and US Soccer will have three representatives in the Club World Cup, even though only the Sounders were continental champions. The big loser was the Liga Deportiva Alajuelense from Costa Rica.