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The first edition of the expanded FIFA Club World Cup in 2025 will last 29 days and begin on June 15, finishing on July 13.
That tournament will be the first of its kind, with FIFA announcing plans for its expansion to 32 teams in December 2022.
The U.S. was confirmed as the host country in June, with FIFA president Gianni Infantino saying that “with the required infrastructure in place together with a massive local interest, the United States is the ideal host to kick off this new, global tournament”.
The expanded Club World Cup, with its format and dates announced after a FIFA Council meeting on Sunday, will come almost exactly a year before the U.S., alongside Canada and Mexico, co-hosts the 2026 men’s World Cup.
European teams will take up 12 of the 32 spots in the new Club World Cup, with four of those being the UEFA Champions League winners in each of the four years before 2025. Chelsea, Real Madrid and Manchester City have already secured their places after winning that competition in recent years.
FIFA has also announced the plans for the annual FIFA Intercontinental Cup, which will see the reigning UEFA Champions League winner face one of the other confederation’s tournament winners in a final after play-off rounds involving the remaining continental champions.
There have been concerns that an expanded Club World Cup with more teams and more games will be to the detriment of player welfare, particularly in Europe where the expanded Champions League group stage beginning next season adds to an already packed calendar. FIFPPRO, the global trade union organisation for professional footballers, released a statement following FIFA’s announcement saying that the new tournament “demonstrates a lack of consideration for the mental and physical health of participating players, as well as a disregard for their personal and family lives”.
How will the new format work?
The current Club World Cup format involves seven teams — the winner of each continental competition plus the hosts’ national champion — competing for the title each year, comprising two first-round games, two second-round games, two semi-finals (where the UEFA Champions League and Copa Libertadores winners enter), a third-place play-off and a final. Real Madrid triumphed in Morocco in the delayed edition of the 2022 Club World Cup earlier this year, with Manchester City among the teams to compete in Saudi Arabia over the next week to determine the 2023 champion.
The revamped tournament will contain eight groups of four teams, with side each playing each other once as the top two qualify for the knockouts, beginning with a last-16 round. Those knockout games will be single-legged and there will not be a third-place play-off.
The new Club World Cup will take place every four years, with the international match calendar altered from 2025 to see one extended international break in late September and early October replacing two separate windows. It has previously taken place around the turn of the calendar year, during the traditional European domestic season, but the 2025 edition will come in the middle of the year, during the North American and South American domestic seasons.
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2025 Club World Cup — who qualifies?
UEFA: 12 clubs (Champions League winners between 2020-21 and 2023-24 and eight other teams to be determined by a club ranking based on the same four-year period)
- Qualified: Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester City
Chelsea have qualified for the 2025 Club World Cup after winning the 2020-2021 Champions League (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
CONMEBOL: Six clubs (Copa Libertadores winners between 2021 and 2024 and two other teams to be determined by a club ranking based on the same four-year period)
- Qualified: Palmeiras, Flamengo, Fluminense
CONCACAF: Four clubs (CONCACAF Champions Cup winners between 2021 and 2024)
- Qualified: Monterrey, Seattle Sounders, Leon
AFC: Four clubs (AFC Champions League winners between 2021 and 2024)
- Qualified: Al Hilal, Urawa Red Diamonds
CAF: Four clubs (CAF Champions League winners between 2021 and 2024)
- Qualified: Al Ahly, Wydad AC
OFC: One club (the highest-ranked club from among the OFC Champions League winners between 2021 and 2024)
Host country: One (access for the club occupying this slot TBC)
In the event of a club winning two or more editions of the confederation’s premier club competition during the 2021-2024 period, FIFA says a club ranking calculated according to sporting criteria will be used to grant access.
How will the club ranking system work?
The following system will be used for teams to earn ranking points from their confederation’s premier club competition:
- three points for a win
- one point for a draw
- three points for progress to each stage of the competition
However, this will be different for European teams because, as FIFA says, “three full seasons and a full group stage of the fourth season of the UEFA Champions League have already been completed, and since UEFA has an existing club coefficient system”. So for Europe, the ranking system will work as follows in the UEFA Champions League:
- two points for a win
- one point for a draw
- four points for qualification for the group stage
- five points for qualification for the round of 16
- one point for progress to each stage of the competition thereafter
Via this ranking pathway, FIFA estimates that, currently, FC Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Inter Milan, Porto and Benfica would take up five of Europe’s eight spots. Teams like Manchester United, Liverpool and Barcelona have not performed sufficiently in the UEFA Champions League as yet to earn a spot via the ranking system.
So, what is the FIFA Intercontinental Cup?
The proposal for an annual Intercontinental Cup was approved at a FIFA Council meeting in March.
In the first round of the tournament, on an alternating basis, the AFC Champions League winners or the CAF Champions League winners will play at home against the OFC Champions League winners. The victor of this round will go on to play either the AFC Champions League winners or the CAF Champions League winners in the next round.
Meanwhile, CONCACAF Champions Cup winners will play the Copa Libertadores winners in a single-leg game, with the host to alternate every year.
The winners of those two paths will face each other in a play-off at a neutral venue a few days before the final. The play-off winner will then face the UEFA Champions League winner at the same neutral venue.
The Intercontinental Cup will take place for the first time next year, with the play-off on December 14 and the final on December 18. The location is to be determined.
What about player welfare concerns?
The FIFPRO statement adds that “the expanded competition will undercut the rest and recovery time of these players at the end of the 2024-25 season, and further disrupt national employment markets by changing the balance between national and international competitions”. FIFPRO adds that the match calendar has again been enlarged without “appropriate safeguards” or “any say” from players.
The union has also called for FIFA to “facilitate discussions with all football stakeholders about the introduction of a basic set of player health and safety regulations to support the welfare”.
In March, the FIFA Council “unanimously approved the establishment of a dedicated task force on player welfare to ensure the smooth implementation of player welfare principles such as mandatory rest periods”. FIFPRO says there “has (been) no follow-up and requests by FIFPRO to launch this process have gone unanswered”. FIFA did not directly respond when asked by The Athletic about the task force.
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FIFPRO, at a minimum, believes that players should have an off-season break of 28 days.
The new Club World Cup, though, is likely to end only a month before the start of the 2025-26 seasons. The last five Premier League campaigns (not including the 2020-21 COVID-impacted season) have begun on August 11 (2023), August 5 (2022), August 13 (2021), August 9 (2019) and August 10 (2018), for example, leaving little time for a break and pre-season before domestic football resumes.
The end of the 2025 Club World Cup is not dissimilar to when a European Championship, Copa America or World Cup might end, all of which also usually take place over June and July. It means, though, that prominent European players may only have one summer off in a four-year cycle, with the Club World Cup now coming in the year between a Euros and a World Cup.
In its workload research paper about men’s football, published earlier this year, FIFPRO also called for an in-season break of 14 days and says players should have at least one day off per week.
FIFPRO also wants guidelines introduced to limit the amount of successive back-to-back games, where players have two games or more per week.
To address player welfare concerns regarding the 2025 Club World Cup, FIFA says teams will have at least three days’ rest between fixtures. FIFA also points out that the International Match Calendar, which includes the 2025 reworked Club World Cup, was approved with a memorandum of understanding by the European Club Association (ECA) earlier this year.
The World Leagues Forum (WLF), the lobby group for the top national divisions, has also voiced its concerns over the expanded Club World Cup. It has written a letter to FIFA lodging in which it complains about the governing body overloading the match calendar and refusing to consider the interests of national competitions.
(Michael Steele/Getty Images)