Fifa will consider holding the Club World Cup every two years from 2029 in a move that would put more pressure on the international calendar and trigger another backlash from the Premier League and Uefa.
The next Club World Cup is due to take place in four years’ time, following the first expanded 32-team tournament held in the US this summer, but the world governing body is under pressure from leading clubs to make it a biennial event. Real Madrid are understood to have raised the issue of moving to a two-year cycle during talks with Fifa in Miami in June, a proposal that has gained support from other clubs who failed to qualify for this year’s tournament, including Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool and Napoli.
Chelsea received £85m in prize money for winning the competition and other big European clubs want the opportunity to take advantage of Fifa’s huge revenue streams, which are being funded largely by Saudi Arabia’s Surj Sports Investments.
Liverpool in particular were unfortunate not to take part this year, as they met one of the qualifying criteria by being among the top eight ranked clubs in Europe, but missed out as Fifa opted to admit a maximum of two sides from a country. Chelsea and Manchester City took the English slots as recent Champions League winners. There is an exception to the limit if more than two clubs from a country win their continental competition during the qualifying period, as was the case with Brazil this year.
Fifa sources said that while there is no serious consideration being given to staging the Club World Cup in 2027, the situation is likely to change after 2029, with the prospect of another tournament being held in 2031 to be explored.
Fifa’s hands are tied in the short-term as the international match calendar is fixed until 2030, with only the 2029 Club World Cup in the schedule, as part of a memorandum of understanding signed between Fifa and the European Clubs Association two years ago.
With Fifa already facing legal action from World Leagues, an international lobby group that includes the Premier League, there is no appetite to inflame it further by ripping up the current schedule. World Leagues has filed a legal complaint to the European Commission with support from the global players’ union Fifpro, accusing Fifa of “abuse of dominance” for allegedly failing to consult them over the scheduling of the Club World Cup.
Staging the new competition every two years would increase tensions still further, but there is an acknowledgement on both sides that the entire global calendar after 2030 is open for negotiation.
As part of a quid pro quo for moving into the club game, sources have indicated that Fifa may be willing to remove the June international break to ease player workloads and create space for events such as the Club World Cup, although that would be opposed by Uefa, which uses summer dates to stage the finals of its Nations League competition.
In a pre-season address last week the Premier League chief executive, Richard Masters, outlined his concerns with expanding the Club World Cup, although the biggest top-flight clubs appear to disagree. “Fifa was put on earth really to regulate the global game and to run international football, and the Club World Cup is a move into club football,” Masters said. “The leagues and the players have not been consulted at all on the timing and scheduling of the competition, and I think whatever iteration of it may come next, we do need to be consulted on that.
“Obviously, it does have an impact on the scheduling of the Premier League season, that much is clear. We’re asking for a seat at the table, a proper discussion for the leagues.”
Fifa is the process of reviewing the qualifying criteria for the 2029 Club World Cup and may lift the cap of two clubs per country, and as previously reported by the Guardian it is consulting on whether to increase the number of teams involved from 32 to 48. The men’s World Cup next year and the 2031 Women’s World Cup will involve 48 teams for the first time, so expanding the Club World Cup would be consistent with Fifa’s tournament model.
Having awarded hosting rights to this year’s competition to the US without inviting tenders, Fifa is planning to run formal bidding process for future tournaments. Qatar, Spain and Morocco have all expressed interest in staging the 2029 Club World Cup, with details of the tender process expected later this year.
