By Samindra Kunti in Doha
December 16 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has outlined his ambitions to stage a 32-team Club World Cup from 2025, and confirmed that Qatar 2022 surprise package Morocco will host the 2022 edition of the competition.
FIFA have long wanted to expand the Club World Cup in a bid to rival the Champions League. The initial plan was for 24 teams but now Infantino has disclosed his expansion plans go even further with a 32-team competition envisaged.
At a news conference in the Qatari capital he said: “The new men’s Club World Cup will take place in 2025 and will feature 32 teams. The 32-team tournament will go ahead, making it like a World Cup.”
Infantino said that the competition will take over the slot of the old and now defunct Confederations Cup, but, while saying there would be talks with stakeholders, he failed to provide more detail.
In 2021, China had been supposed to host the first, expanded 24-team club but Covid-19 as well as the commercial viability of the tournament led to FIFA reversing gears and sticking to the current, unwieldy 7-team competition. Back in 2019, the European Club Association (ECA) expressed opposition to the idea and they did so again a couple of days ago.
The Club World Cup has never been popular in Europe and some of the continent’s stakeholders consider the idea a landgrab by FIFA as it chases their commercial revenues.
The current format brings together the winners of each confederation’s flagship competition as well as the host champions. Last February, Chelsea defeated Brazil’s Palmeiras to win the 2021 edition in the United Arab Emirates and Infantino announced that Morocco, World Cup semi-finalists, will stage the 2022 iteration early next year.
It’s not the first time that the North Africans will organise the tournament. They also staged the Club World Cup in 2013 and 2014 when Bayern Munich and Real Madrid won the competition respectively. As European champions Madrid will be back this time and their main challengers will be Flamengo of Brazil, the Copa Libertadores winners.
Infantino also rekindled the idea of Women’s Club World Cup but again failed to elaborate and provide detail. He first suggested such a competition in 2019.
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