FIFA wouldn’t quite be FIFA without some unpopular and wildly ambitious rejigging of the way football’s organised and dark mutterings about the morality of where its money is heading, and FIFA president Gianni Infantino is set to continue that trend.
It’s a revamp of the Club World Cup, mainly known for causing Manchester United to duck out of defending the FA Cup the season after their treble win, as well as a mooted Global Nations League as a new international tournament.
What’s going to change?
Nothing this year. The Club World Cup 2018 will be hosted in Abu Dhabi in December.
It hopes to attract more than 30,000 foreign football fans to watch some of the biggest football clubs in the world. It’s worth noting this is a big year for UAE football, as the capital will host the Asian Cup in December (where more than one million visitors are expected to fly in).
What about next year?
The revamped Club World Cup is proposed to run every season and would expand from just the six winners of the continental cups to include 24 top teams from around the globe.
European teams would dominate with 12 representatives, plus two each from Africa, Asia and North and Central America, four or five from South America and one or none from Oceania. Real Madrid and Barcelona are reported to be into the idea. The plan for the World Nations League is a bit more opaque but was originally a UEFA plan which, they say, was hijacked by FIFA.
You mean like the Confederations Cup?
A little bit – that’s tussled over by the champions of the six continental championships, plus the World Cup winners and the host nation of the next competition. The Confederations Cup would, slightly confusingly, be junked in favour of the new Club World Cup, which would run in June of the year before the World Cup.
So who’s paying for it?
The Club World Cup wouldn’t be cheap: figures between US$15 billion and US$30 billion have been bandied about for funding four tournaments from 2021, with US$200 million apparently promised to each participating club.
Who’s unhappy about it?
UEFA is apparently extremely opposed to a heavyweight rival to its Champions League, which it’s spent a colossal amount of time and money on turning into an absolute commercial juggernaut.
In May, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin went in with both feet. “I cannot accept that some people who are blinded by the pursuit of profit are considering to sell the soul of football tournaments to nebulous private funds,” he said. “Money does not rule – and the European sports model must be respected. Football is not for sale. I will not let anyone sacrifice its structures on the altar of a highly cynical and ruthless mercantilism.” Juventus president Andrea Agnelli also described the proposed funding as “dodgy”.
