The FIFA World Club Cup, which kicks off in the U.S. on June 14, 2025, may seem like a new competition.
The organizing body has trumpeted a $1 billion prize pot for the World Club Cup.
A history of failure The ambition to create a club world cup to rival the European Cup goes back to the 1950s.
Yet the overwhelming feeling going into the competition is that, like its predecessors, the revamped FIFA club competition is destined for failure.
Ultimately, FIFA’s revamped World Club Cup faces the same issues that beset its forerunners: European teams are overwhelmingly tipped to win.
As the FIFA World Club Cup begins in the U.S. S. may appear to be a new competition on June 14, 2025.
In actuality, the tournament is the most recent phase of FIFA’s historical endeavor, which dates back to 1960, to establish a worldwide championship that would identify the world’s top club.
A $1 billion prize fund for the World Club Cup has been trumpeted by the organizing body. FIFA, however, has been quieter about the broadcasting agreement supporting the event, which is reportedly being funded by Saudi Arabia to the tune of $1 billion. The lucrative prize for the Gulf kingdom, the deal was announced just days before Saudi Arabia was officially confirmed as the host of the men’s 2034 World Cup.
This sounds more like FIFA as we all know it, complete with the stench of corruption and shady business practices that have plagued the organization for many years.
Critics of FIFA contend that the competition is merely an effort to enrich the governing body. FIFA claims that it will give the clubs a portion of the event’s profits rather than keeping “one dollar.”.
The fact that clubs and players are also unimpressed and argue that the event is an unnecessary addition to an already overtaxed soccer calendar does not help FIFA’s cause.
The fans will continue to be the ultimate judge of success. That front is not going well at the moment. Ticketmaster’s declining prices are bad for the competition. FIFA slashed prices for the first game, which pitted MLS team Inter Miami against Egypt’s Al-Ahly, just days before the games were scheduled to start. Despite the probable presence of soccer superstar Lionel Messi, reports indicate that less than one-third of the tickets at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, which has 65,000 seats, had sold.
Naturally, the decrease in the number of visitors to the United States. S. The president’s recently announced travel ban, which applies to 19 countries, and Donald Trump’s second inauguration haven’t helped draw global game fans to the United States. S. even if none of the teams in the competition are from those nations.
FIFA against… the UEFA.
Why is FIFA so involved, then, considering all the issues and disputes?
As someone who has spent a lot of time studying the relationship between soccer, money, and power, I see the World Club Cup as a battle between FIFA, which wants to replace the Champions League with its own competition, and UEFA, the European governing body that oversees the Champions League, which is currently regarded as the highest level of soccer club competition.
The fact that UEFA is home to the biggest clubs in the world gives it power. The soccer data website Transfermarkt’s list of the 50 most valuable squads only includes one non-European club, Palmeiras of Brazil, which comes in at number 50.
It is uncommon for elite athletes in their prime to leave Europe to play in another continent; instead, they choose to play in the United States. S. . or Saudi leagues are typically veterans making money off of their reputations.
Meanwhile, European clubs are attracting the best soccer players in the world. Not all elite teams can afford to pay top dollar for the best players; lesser-known teams like Brentford, Real Sociedad, or VfB Stuttgart also have the resources to compete in the global player market.
These clubs’ prestige and wealth serve as UEFA’s driving force. The Champions League, an annual competition that unites the top clubs in Europe, is the crown jewel of UEFA.
A two-part game.
Although the Euros are UEFA’s own national competition, FIFA’s World Cup has far more appeal.
This division, with UEFA controlling the club competition and FIFA controlling the international team competition, dates back to the 1960s and the early days of mass television.
With an estimated 400 million viewers worldwide, the 1966 World Cup was one of the first international sporting events to be held in England.
The four-year tradition that outstrips even the Olympics as a major international athletic event was started by the 1970 World Cup, which is considered a legendary event by boomer soccer fans.
UEFA’s Euros at the time were hardly a competition at all. There were only four teams and four or five games in the 1968, 1972, and 1976 editions, which were held in Italy, Belgium, and Yugoslavia, respectively.
By that time UEFA had made a name for itself in club competition. The Champions League, then known as the European Cup, began play in 1955.
However, the match that is remembered today for establishing the supremacy of European club competition is the 1960 final between Real Madrid and Eintract Frankfurt, which Los Blancos won 7-3 in a thrilling 10-goal match.
A crowd of 128,000 people watched it at Glasgow, Scotland’s Hampden Park, but the more significant figure was the estimated 70 million European spectators.
With 270 million viewers, Manchester United defeated Benfica in the 1968 final at London’s Wembley Stadium in remembrance of the “Busby Babes,” Manchester players who perished in the 1958 Munich air disaster while returning from a European Cup match.
A history of failure.
The goal of establishing a club world cup to compete with the European Cup dates back to the 1950s. Soccer giants Brazil and Argentina, in particular, championed the notion that the best clubs in Europe ought to compete against the best teams in South America.
The top teams from UEFA and CONMEBOL, the South American soccer federation, competed in the ensuing Intercontinental Cup, which ran from 1960 to 2004.
Despite being played in the middle of the season, it hardly affected the fans.
FIFA established the Club World Championship in 2000, and eight teams from the five international federations competed.
The 2001–2004 editions had to be canceled due to a lack of funding, and it also received little love.
The first three winners were South Americans, and in the beginning it appeared to be a pretext to copy the Intercontinental Cup. But every winner since 2006 has been European, with the exception of Brazil’s Corinthians in 2012.
European nations are “on the beach.”.
When FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced plans to expand the competition and move it to the summer, that was in 2017. The competition will resemble the World Cup with 32 teams and be heavily televised.
Watching it will be free, which will be beneficial. So will Messi’s presence.
However, the general consensus heading into the competition is that the redesigned FIFA club competition is doomed to fail, just like its predecessors.
To use a favorite phrase of soccer commentators, players and fans seem to be “on the beach” after the Champions League final, the unofficial signal of the end of the soccer season, was held on May 31 and the European domestic leagues were all finished.
The redesigned World Club Cup by FIFA ultimately has the same problems as its predecessors: European teams are heavily favored to win.
Instead of fostering the global soccer “solidarity” FIFA seeks, the competition aims to strengthen the dominance of European clubs and Europe’s governing body in club competition.
