Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

The Independent UK

Sport

Lawrence Ostlere

The controversial reason Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami are playing in the Club World Cup

Chelsea Liverpool World Cup Club World Cup the Club World Cup Flamengo (Person) Concacaf Caf Fifa Lionel Messi

There are 32 of the best football teams from across the globe playing in the Club World Cup over the coming weeks.

The contest will see various clubs from all six confederations combining to produce Fifa’s ultimate goal of crowning the champions of the world at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.

Much of the tournament is made up from teams in Europe and South America, where the power of the club game has traditionally been.

Watch every Fifa Club World Cup game free on DAZN. Sign up here now

But clubs from Concacaf (North and Central America), AFC (Asia) and CAF (Africa) and OFC (Oceania) will hope to spring a surprise.

Why are Inter Miami in the Club World Cup?

The short answer is almost certainly “Lionel Messi”.

For more than a year, Fifa held open an unspecificied “host country” slot in the competition, with no explanation for how it would be filled. Then Gianni Infantino turned up out of the blue at an MLS game in Miami to announce that Messi’s Inter Miami had qualified for the Club World Cup via this mysterious additional slot due to their success in winning the regular-season league – something that wouldn’t normally result in an additional prize, given the subsequent play-offs are where MLS champions are actually decided.

“As one of the best clubs in the world, you are deserved participants in the new FIFA Club World Cup 2025,” Infantino announced. Fifa later explained in a statement that Inter Miami won the place “on the basis of the club’s outstanding and consistent 34-match campaign.”

MLS chief Don Garber had initially approached Fifa with ideas for how to decide the spot, but has since hinted that Fifa took a unilateral decision over who earned the prize. Rival franchises were not happy, but Inter Miami co-owner Jorge Mas insisted there was "no controversy”.

Yet it was undeniably an odd move by Fifa to choose the regular-season winners of MLS, considering other continents had very different entry requirements for qualification, such as the past continental champions four years ago – hello, Chelsea. But Infantino has the tournament he has long dreamed of, and he has the world’s most famous player starring in it.

Messi training at the Club World Cup this week (AP)

How have teams qualified?

Confederations were allocated a certain number of spots based on the strength of their teams.

Uefa (Europe) was given 12 spaces, Conmebol (South America) have six, Concacaf (North and Central America), AFC (Asia) and Caf (Africa) each have four spots, and OFC (Oceania) has one spot available.

Concacaf were also given a fifth spot due to being the host nation of the tournament.

These spots were decided through two methods: either winning a continental title in one of the four most recent seasons, or by being highly ranked in a system calculated by performances over the four qualifying years.

In the majority of cases, teams have earned qualification through winning their confederation’s equivalent of the Uefa Champions League.

For the OCF with only one team able to qualify, their spot went to the best performing team over the four years, which happened to be Auckland City.

All countries were only allowed two teams to compete, except if all continental title winners came from the same nation. This is why there are four Brazilian teams who have won qualifying spots for CONMEBOL.

Once the two-per-country cap had been reached, another team from that nation were not eligible to qualify, regardless of their ranking position.

This rule has excluded teams such as Liverpool despite, being the eighth-ranked team, as Manchester City and Chelsea both received automatic qualification thanks to their Champions League victories in 2023 and 2021.

Other teams ineligible for qualification include Barcelona, RB Leipzig and Napoli, which gave lower ranked teams such as Benfica and FC Salzburg the opportunity to play.

As Real Madrid won the Champions League twice within the four year timeframe (2022 and 2024), nine European teams gained qualification spots through ranking rather than the intended eight.

The same goes for CAF. As their Champions League has been won by only two teams in the past four years, two teams ended up receiving qualification through ranking.

Morocco’s Wydad AC are in the tournament (AP)

Qualification from the North and Central American confederation Concacaf is where things become complicated and controversial.

Mexican side, Club Leon were disqualified from the CWC due to multi-ownership regulations, despite gaining automatic qualification by winning the Champions Cup in 2023. Their shared ownership with Pachuca (who also qualified and are still permitted to compete) goes against Article 10 of Fifa, which forbids one individual or legal entity from controlling more than one club in the same tournament.

As a result, after rejected appeals, Leon were disqualified. Fifa announced a play-off between Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) and Mexican team Club America which was won by LAFC, granting them access to the tournament.