This summer’s FIFA Club World Cup continued the sport’s governing body’s recent trend of combining major tournaments with controversy.
After 2022’s winter World Cup in Qatar which was slated for the hosts’ poor human rights record, Gianni Infantino’s latest brainchild was to expand the FIFA Club World Cup from nine teams to 32.
Amid accusations that player welfare was being at best ignored, this new competition was played at the end of a gruelling club season and took place in the USA, where oppressive temperatures and weather delays added further fuel to the fire that this was a tournament primarily driven by financial reasons.
Pat Nevin takes aim at Club World Cup
Chelsea would end up lifting the trophy when they defeated freshly-crowned European champions Paris Saint-Germain in the final, but former Blues winger Pat Nevin could not get behind the tournament.
“Donald Trump’s antics summed up all the bad things about that competition,” Nevin told Compare.bet. “It summed them all up. Lots of things are wrong with it. Ridiculousness. Don't start me because there's so many.
“The Americanisation of it. You're not allowed to have more than 15 minutes of break… unless you're FIFA. This is bad for players. You stiffen up. It's very dangerous actually. Never laugh at injuries. The time of the year, that amount of games, the stupidity of the Americanisation drove me nuts.
“Gianni Infantino getting involved in everything as if he's a god drives me nuts. And you can't surely put Donald Trump in there, my God. It was just embarrassing.
“However, I suspect if you ask large numbers of a generation, a much younger generation, they probably loved all the razz-ma-tazz. There are members of a younger generation who aren't pure football fans, they are there for the celebrity thing. And they're all over the world.
“They'll buy into that. I think they will. So it doesn't matter whether I like it or not. It's not important. The game's being Americanized.”
Nevin adds that he believes this Americanization means that the fan experience is being diminished, as the sport’s governors more than ever see the sport as a business.
“They're aiming at people who have a vague interest in football and it's about the celebrity of football,” he continues. “And if you look at the numbers where they're getting them from, they will be from Southeast Asia, they'll be masses from America.
“They don't think of people, they think of units. I know how it works. I've studied them at degree level etc. I know what they're doing and I get it, I did marketing. I've done all that stuff. So I can see what it is. And from a marketing point of view and from a business point of view, it might work. I don't like it, but what's it got to do with me?”
