As expected, FIFA deemed the recent Club World Cup held in the United States won by Chelsea a success, as it featured 32 teams for the first time. However, the event sparked criticism from players, coaches, and leagues.
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One of the harshest voices against the tournament was that of the German Jürgen Klopp, former coach of Liverpool, who told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that the Club World Cup was “the worst idea that has been put into practice in football.”
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At the same time, the president of the Spanish league, Javier Tebas, declared during the tournament that “my goal is for there to be no more Club World Cups. There are no dates, we don’t need another competition... what needs to be done is to eliminate it.”.
They were opposed by the respected former French coach Arsène Wenger, current FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development, who said that “we need a Club World Cup. If you ask all the clubs that were here, 100% of the answers would be that they would want to repeat it”.
In this scenario, it seems that FIFA has to address several uncertainties before confirming the second Club World Cup with 32 teams in June 2029, where Brazil is one of the main candidates to be the host country.
These are the main questions:
Overload of matches for the players
The main criticism is related to the excess of games for the footballers of the participating teams, who in most cases arrived at the tournament after grueling seasons, especially the Europeans.
A nearly month-long tournament in June and July also poses a problem for the upcoming season, as many players started their short vacations just a few days ago and teams like PSG, Real Madrid, Chelsea (the European teams that reached the semifinals) will begin their preseason much later than the rest of the teams in their leagues. Additionally, at the end of the 2025-2026 season, the World Cup of national teams will take place.
FIFA spoke about a supposed agreement of 21 consecutive vacation days for players per season, but the union of footballers claims they were not invited to these negotiations and demand 28 days of rest. Additionally, they accused Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, of “thinking he is God”.
Sergio Marchi, president of FIFPro (International Federation of Professional Footballers’ Associations), accused FIFA of having “a logic of economic profitability, not human sustainability.”
In a column for The Athletic, former German international Philipp Lahm wrote that “it will soon be unrealistic to expect that seasons will be followed by long breaks in the summer and European football will have to accept this.”
Last year, Spanish midfielder Rodri from Manchester City warned about the saturation of matches and said that the players “are about to go on strike”.
What will happen to the Club World Cup if the players really come together and stand up to FIFA?
A format that is not very competitive
The World Cup tournaments are usually more competitive because many countries can field good teams and players, but the recent Club World Cup showed that economic power rules and talent is concentrated in a few teams.
The best example is Argentina, the champion in Qatar 2022, but its two teams in the Club World Cup (Boca and River) were decisively eliminated in the first round, as the top figures of Argentine football are in the main teams of Europe.
In addition, amateur teams such as New Zealand’s Auckland City, the Oceania champion, suffered 10-0 and 6-0 defeats against Bayern Munich and Benfica, respectively.
Faced with such differences, it was clear that the efforts of many european teams were not the greatest.
Low interest from fans
Many unknown teams, even for average fans, and especially in a less football-focused country like the United States, conspired to have a low presence of fans in the stands.
Only 62% of the available seating in the stadiums was filled and there were poor attendances, such as the 3,400 fans from Ulsan of South Korea vs. Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa in Orlando.
This led FIFA to practically give away some tickets. The original price for a ticket to the semi-final match between Chelsea and Fluminense at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey was $473 and they were reduced to $13.