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FIFA Anxious to Reboot Club World Cup after Years of Delays

President of the International Football Federation (FIFA) Gianni Infantino gives a speech during the FIFA Club World Cup draw ceremony, in Sale north of Morocco's capital on January 13, 2023. (AFP)
President of the International Football Federation (FIFA) Gianni Infantino gives a speech during the FIFA Club World Cup draw ceremony, in Sale north of Morocco's capital on January 13, 2023. (AFP)
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FIFA Anxious to Reboot Club World Cup after Years of Delays

President of the International Football Federation (FIFA) Gianni Infantino gives a speech during the FIFA Club World Cup draw ceremony, in Sale north of Morocco's capital on January 13, 2023. (AFP)
President of the International Football Federation (FIFA) Gianni Infantino gives a speech during the FIFA Club World Cup draw ceremony, in Sale north of Morocco's capital on January 13, 2023. (AFP)

A little-loved member of FIFA’s family of football tournaments for so long, the latest Club World Cup starts Wednesday as a seven-team event two years after that format was due to have been abolished and two years before an ambitious revamp with up to 32 teams.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has wanted since being elected to lead football’s world governing body in 2016 to create a bigger and better version of its only club tournament, an event he once valued at potentially worth $3 billion per edition promising tens of millions in prize money for each team.

Until a major overhaul — likely in 2025 after the European season — FIFA goes year-to-year with the smaller mid-season version of the intercontinental championship that barely adds to its multi-billion-dollar income.

FIFA will pay $5 million of a $16 million total prize fund to the winner next week, likely to be Real Madrid on a brief, two-game visit to Morocco that could start with a semifinal against the Seattle Sounders. The champion of Europe has won 14 of the 15 titles since 2007.

The tournament’s shifting place in a congested global football calendar was shown by FIFA confirming Morocco as host just six weeks ago.

That decision was taken in Qatar on the day Infantino targeted 2025 for the first 32-team club event -- “making it really like a World Cup,” he said in Doha.

The timing surprised some soccer officials in Europe who see FIFA's ambitions in club football threatening their domestic leagues and the globally popular, hugely lucrative Champions League.

Before going to FIFA, Infantino was the UEFA general secretary overseeing the Champions League and knows exactly the appeal and value of staging top-level clubs.

Infantino quickly identified in 2016 two FIFA events for men’s continental champions that had limited appeal nor value, because broadcast and sponsor rights are currently bundled with the World Cup.

The Confederations Cup for eight national teams stopped in 2017. The Club World Cup has limped on while Infantino has been stymied — by UEFA and the COVID-19 pandemic — in efforts to relaunch it.

FIFA has said a bigger Club World Cup will “promote and grow football for the benefit of all confederations, member associations, leagues, clubs and fans.”

In a tumultuous 2018, Infantino’s push to accept a $25 billion offer to create new competitions met UEFA objections to secrecy about the investors who would have an ownership stake. The deal called for a Club World Cup every four years and a follow-up proposal for an annual event also was resisted.

One year later in Shanghai, the ruling FIFA Council agreed to a 24-team Club World Cup launching in June 2021 hosted by China. Europe would have eight teams though FIFA wanted 12 to help drive new commercial deals.

The format was expected to feature eight three-team groups with winners advancing to the quarterfinals. Teams would play at most five games over 18 days in late June, like the Confederations Cup schedule.

FIFA shelved it in March 2020, taking an inevitable decision when the pandemic forced the European Championship and Copa America to be postponed to start in June 2021.

Into that void, 12 of Europe’s most storied clubs tried to launch a breakaway Super League project. It failed within days amid a backlash from UEFA, fan groups and lawmakers.

Infantino later acknowledged having talks with some Super League clubs, including Real Madrid and Barcelona, which had backed the earlier $25 billion project. He denied “in any way whatsoever that FIFA was behind or colluding or plotting” for a Super League.

When Club World Cup expansion was on hold, the scheduled 2020 edition in Qatar didn't turn out to be the farewell FIFA once intended for the seven-team format. The tournament wasn't played that year because of the pandemic delaying three continental finals, pushing the 2020 Club World Cup into 2021.

The 2021 edition was played in February 2022 with Abu Dhabi as a short-notice replacement for Japan, which backed out citing expected COVID-related limits on spectators in December.

The 2022 edition was delayed to start this month because the World Cup in Qatar was on last December, the regular time slot for the Club World Cup since 2005.

So there could now be two Club World Cups staged in 2023, with a regular December edition in the mix. Maybe a farewell for the seven-team format will have to wait until December 2024.

FIFA said this week that no decisions have been made.

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Eddie Howe Seeks Right ‘Dynamic’ as Newcastle Future Comes Under Question

Eddie Howe directs training at the Adidas training facilities in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Photograph: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United/Getty Images
Eddie Howe directs training at the Adidas training facilities in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Photograph: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United/Getty Images
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Eddie Howe Seeks Right ‘Dynamic’ as Newcastle Future Comes Under Question

Eddie Howe directs training at the Adidas training facilities in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Photograph: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United/Getty Images
Eddie Howe directs training at the Adidas training facilities in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Photograph: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United/Getty Images

Appearances can be deceptive and the apparently carefree Howe had much to ponder at a moment when he appears high on the Football Association’s shortlist to replace Gareth Southgate as England manager but faces a battle to retain the autonomy over recruitment and training strategy he has enjoyed since taking over at Newcastle in November 2021.

The departure of the former co-owner Amanda Staveley, a key Howe ally, and the installation of Paul Mitchell as director of football and James Bunce as performance director threaten to dilute the amount of control Howe has enjoyed at a club with Saudi Arabian majority ownership.

It explains why, on Friday, he played a political game with the media straight out of the old playbook of one of his St James’ predecessors, Rafael Benítez. Despite playing a pretty straight bat with broadcast journalists, suggesting his loyalties lay with Newcastle rather than England, Howe was rather more equivocal with newspaper reporters, hinting that a potential offer from the FA could become attractive if the club he remained “emotionally invested in” failed to allow him to set “boundaries” in his new relationships with Mitchell and Bunce.

Although he praised both men’s capabilities, Howe will not have enjoyed a recent meeting with the Saudis at a Northumberland hotel when his squad’s extensive injury problems last season were analysed. Injury prevention ranks high among Bunce’s skills and it appears an ownership that, for all its admiration of the 46-year-old’s coaching brilliance, seemingly believes that fitness problems cost the club European qualification and that Howe’s training sessions may require a little modification.

Bunce has previously said he cannot be best friends with managers and has to sometimes hold difficult conversations with them. Those comments go a long way to explaining why Newcastle’s normally very circumspect manager used the leverage afforded by the FA’s interest to indulge in such a blatant power play in Bavaria.

Similarly, when Staveley was running the club, Howe had the final word on player recruitment and his nephew Andy Howe played a significant part in that sphere; his fear now is that Mitchell may reduce that power.

“I absolutely want to stay but it has to be right for me and the club,” said Howe. “There’s no point in me saying I’m happy staying at Newcastle if the dynamic isn’t right. As a new team coming together we have to set our boundaries.”

Earlier in the week, Newcastle’s chief executive, Darren Eales, had talked about the recent personnel changes as enabling the manager to spend “more time on the grass, where Eddie’s at his best” but as Howe put it on Friday: “I’ve made the points I have today because this has to work for Newcastle.

“I have been really happy for two and a half years. I have loved every second of the relationships that I’ve had and the way I’ve been able to work. I think that has brought success. We’re in the flux of change, I can’t say with a definitive answer where that will lead.”

For a man who enjoyed so much control over every sphere at his previous club Bournemouth, that during his early days he sometimes locked up the ground at night and proofread the match programme, the past weeks have proved unsettling.

“Of course I’ve spoken to the Public Investment Fund [about this summer’s events] and will continue to speak to them,” Howe said. “The relationship is good.

“Since PIF have been here, and I want to make this clear, they’ve done some amazing things for the club and they are absolutely going to do some amazing things for it in the future. Everyone should be very excited about what is ahead for Newcastle.”

The Guardian Sport