- Seven teams take part at present
- Expanded to rival Champions League
- World Cup format being mirrored
WHAT HAPPENED?World football’s governing body has wanted to have a domestic competition in place that can compete with the UEFA Champions League for some time, and those plans are now coming to fruition. The Club World Cup currently features just seven teams – with the winners of each confederation’s most prestigious trophy competing for the global title – but the format will be tinkered with to bring it more in line with the international World Cup.
WHAT THEY SAID: Infantino has said: “As you will remember, we had agreed a few years ago to have a new men’s Club World Cup with 24 teams. This should have taken place in 2021 [but] was postponed because of Covid. The new men’s Club World Cup will therefore take place in 2025 and will feature 32 teams, the best teams in the world. Of course, the details of that still need to be discussed and agreed, but the 32-team tournament will go ahead, making it really like a World Cup.”
THE BIGGER PICTURE: Infantino went on to reveal that the 2023 Club World Cup will be staged in Morocco, while also announcing plans for a new Women’s Club World Cup and the launch of a FIFA World Series – which will allow top nations from across the globe to compete on a more regular basis. He added: “The importance of having matches between national teams of different continents more regularly, the idea of that, the principle, was agreed and elaborated on. [The plan] is to use the March windows in the even years, the World Cup years, the Euros years and the Copa America years, and organise friendly tournaments between four teams from four different confederations, so that way everyone can gain this experience of playing each other, under of course, the FIFA umbrella, so the FIFA World Series type of events.”
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Getty ImagesWHAT NEXT?Chelsea are the current holders of the FIFA Club World Cup crown, having seen off Copa Libertadores winners Palmeiras in 2021, while Argentina and France are set to lock horns on Sunday in the 2022 World Cup final.