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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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Men’s Olympic Soccer Remains Stuck in the Game’s Second Tier

The last five champions have all been Latin American, largely because of the willingness of Argentina and Brazil to send major stars such as Lionel Messi and Neymar. (file photo/The AP)
The last five champions have all been Latin American, largely because of the willingness of Argentina and Brazil to send major stars such as Lionel Messi and Neymar. (file photo/The AP)
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Men’s Olympic Soccer Remains Stuck in the Game’s Second Tier

The last five champions have all been Latin American, largely because of the willingness of Argentina and Brazil to send major stars such as Lionel Messi and Neymar. (file photo/The AP)
The last five champions have all been Latin American, largely because of the willingness of Argentina and Brazil to send major stars such as Lionel Messi and Neymar. (file photo/The AP)

The Poststadion still stands, about 10 minutes’ walk north-west of Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof. It’s set up for American football these days and this summer it was the centre of Berlin Pride. But in 1936, it was there that Adolf Hitler, for the only time in his life, attended a football match.

Hitler, like a lot of dictators, was suspicious of football. It was too unpredictable, the crowds that followed it too large and anarchic. But Germany had been impressive in beating Luxembourg 9-0, and nobody thought much of Norway, so Hitler, along with several other senior Nazis including Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and Rudolf Hess went to the quarter-final.
Germany’s assistant coach was Sepp Herberger, who would later lead West Germany to victory at the 1954 World Cup. He had been sent to watch Italy v Japan, the winners of which would play the winners of Germany’s quarter-final, so he was not at the Poststadion. He returned to the team base and was tucking into a dinner of knuckle of pork and sauerkraut when he saw one of the other coaches, Georg Knöpfle, return. He knew from his face it had all gone badly wrong, pushed his plate away and never ate knuckle of pork again. Germany had lost 2-0.

Italy beat Norway in the semi-final and went on to overcome Austria in the final, adding Olympic gold to the World Cup they had won two years earlier. They would add another World Cup in 1938. But their coach, Vittorio Pozzo, always said that 1936 was arguably his greatest achievement given he was in effect leading a team of students (albeit five of them subsequently turned pro). In Germany, by contrast, there was no professional football and so the host’s squad was a full-strength one.

That’s always been the problem with men’s Olympic football. Unlike the women’s game, which has no limitations on who is eligible to play, the men’s tournament has dealt with restrictions and questions of amateurism. And different countries have interpreted amateurism in different ways, with a huge bearing on results. The Uruguay team that took gold in 1924 and 1928, for instance, was undeniably brilliant but very few of their players would have met more stringent European definitions of amateurism; Jules Rimet, the president of Fifa, essentially waved them through to enhance non-European participation and to give the competition a more global feel.

That’s why from 1952 to 1988, every Olympic football gold (bar 1984 when the eastern bloc countries boycotted the games) was won by a team from a communist nation. Their players were technically state employees working in the army or the interior ministry or for various factories or unions and so were deemed amateur as they were not officially paid for playing sport. That’s not to say none of them were great teams – the Hungary of 1952 went on to reach the final of the 1954 World Cup; the fine Soviet Union team of 1956 would be devastated before the next World Cup by the conviction of their centre-forward Eduard Streltsov for rape; the Poland side of 1972 eliminated England in qualifying for the 1974 World Cup at which they finished third – but neither were they competing against the cream of the rest of the world.

After the collapse of communism, the men’s tournament has been for under-23 players, with three overage players permitted from 1996. Spain in 1992 were widely regarded as one of the great home successes of the Barcelona Olympics, and their squad did include Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique. At its most generous interpretation, there was evidence there of the beginnings of the superiority of Spanish youth development, but it would be a long time before that manifested as a major international trophy.

There were thrilling victories for Nigeria in 1996 and Cameroon in 2000, which seemed part of a more general process of improvement in African football. Since then, though, at least in terms of getting closer to challenging seriously for a World Cup, African football has largely stagnated.

Philadelphia Union midfielder Cavan Sullivan looks on during Wednesday’s game against the New England Revolution at Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania.

The last five champions have all been Latin American, largely because of the willingness of Argentina and Brazil to send major stars such as Lionel Messi and Neymar. Kylian Mbappé seemingly wanted to play this time but after competing in the Euros, his club Real Madrid refused to grant him a waiver to play this summer. France’s overage players are Loïc Badé, Alexandre Lacazette and Jean-Philippe Mateta. Argentina are sending Gerónimo Rulli, Julián Álvarez and Nicolás Otamendi. Spain haven’t named a player over 24 and only two of their squad have ever won a full cap, suggesting how they regard the competition. The US, meanwhile, have named only one uncapped player, with their roster featuring 114 combined senior caps. Mali will lead the African challenge, while there will be obvious symbolism to Ukraine’s participation.

But the truth is that in men’s football, the Olympics doesn’t really matter and hasn’t done so since the advent of the World Cup, providing a tournament for all players, amateur and professional, in 1930. At best, it offers a snapshot of a political mood or provides evidence of promising young players who may develop over the decade to follow. No Olympic gold is entirely worthless, but few mean less than that in men’s football.

The Guardian Sport