From £0 bid to £800m! Bizarre Club World Cup broadcast battle sees revamped FIFA tournament in the United States go from one extreme to the other

ITV made a bid of £0 to show the tournament on free-to-air TV in the UK, believing an offer to broadcast to a big audience may be enough to tempt FIFA, report The Telegraph. The global rights were eventually sold for £800m ($1 billion) to streaming service DAZN, who may still sublicense the rights to a British broadcaster.

The FIFA tournament is president Gianni Infantino's attempts to muscle in on the enormous TV deals that have defined the Champions League and Premier League in recent years. However, attracting enough interest from broadcasters proved to be a struggle, resulting in ITV's initial bid.

There is concern among FIFA's longstanding commercial partners, too, with the tournament not set to be included in the inventory of current deals. So far, FIFA has only announced Coca-Cola as an official partner of the tournament, with six others yet to strike a deal.

The competition is set to begin on Saturday 14 June, when Al Ahly take on Lionel Messi's Inter Miami at Hard Rock Stadium. The final will be played in East Rutherford on Sunday 13 July.