Divisive Club World Cup finally comes into focus as ‘world's best' fight for gold

Daily Maverick

a day ago

The pre-flight checks of the revamped Fifa Club World Cup have been anything but smooth.
From player backlash for the addition of another major tournament in an already bloated schedule, to unions taking global soccer's governing body Fifa to court over player welfare, it's been a bumpy build-up.
The excitement Fifa was hoping for before the tournament has been absent so far, with the organisers even being forced to slash ticket prices due to slow sales.
True Club World Cup
Despite all the pushback and setbacks, as well as widespread accusations of unilaterally conceptualising the tournament, Fifa boss Gianni Infantino said he was excited to see what the rejigged World Cup could offer.
'Any club from anywhere in the world can dream (about) playing in the Club World Cup. And any player from anywhere in the world can dream about playing for one of these clubs, because these are the best clubs in the world,' Infantino stated.
'The 32 best teams of the world — including 12 European, six South American, four from the other continents, one from Oceania, five from North America — will play to determine (for the first time in history) which will really be the best club in the world. You cannot be the best if you don't play against clubs from everywhere — the best clubs from everywhere,' said Infantino.
Real Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester City are in by virtue of being crowned European champions between 2020 and 2024. Due to Madrid clinching it twice in that qualifying period, 2024 finalists Borussia Dortmund are also in.
Teams such as Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, Inter Milan, Atlético Madrid, Porto, Benfica and Austria's RB Salzburg have qualified via the rankings system derived from their performances in European competition of the past four years.
With the cap for the participating European countries being at only two teams per country — sides such as Liverpool and Barcelona (whose ranking points were not sufficient at the time of the qualification process closing) — miss out.
Africa has four representatives — record African champions Al Ahly (Egypt), as well as 2022 Champions League winners Wydad Casablanca of Morocco, South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns and Tunisian giants Espérance.
In pursuit of prestige
Teams have been drawn into eight groups of four, with each side playing their group opponents once. The top two of each group will progress to the round of 16, and from there it will be single-match knockouts to the final.
Masandawana are in a fair group and will be confident of qualifying for the next round as one of the top two in the four-team mini-league. The 2016 African champions are grouped alongside Germany's Borussia Dortmund, Fluminense of Brazil and South Korean side Ulsan HD.
Moving away from its annual format, the World Cup will take place every four years, as a precursor to every national World Cup, which is also quadrennial ever since doing away with the Confederations Cup.
The previous iteration of the tournament — which had been contested since 2000 — featured six continental champions, plus a club from the host nation, facing off in a week of action-packed soccer.
In that guise it struggled to garner any significant hype, usually just drawing in the supporters of the participating teams. Even then, it was mostly at a superficial level. With this expanded version, Fifa is hopeful that it can craft a tournament that will one day hold the same stature and prestige as the national teams' World Cup — which is the governing body's flagship competition.
Criticism and controversy
Although Infantino and Fifa have worked hard to cover the World Cup in the prettiest wrapping paper (including announcing a $1-billion pool of prize money), not everyone is happy about the rejigged club tournament.
Upon the December 2022 confirmation by Fifa that the World Cup had been greenlighted by its council, global player union Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels (Fifpro) denounced it.
Fifpro said the decision was 'taken unilaterally and without seriously consulting, let alone agreeing, with the players'. Since then, Fifpro has been regularly critical of the tournament, going as far as mounting legal challenges in an attempt to halt it.
In October 2024, Fifpro also filed a complaint against Fifa with the European Commission — in relation to the Club World Cup, as well as the expanded national teams' World Cup. The latter competition has ballooned from 32 participants to the 48 that will converge in North America for the 2026 edition.
Player welfare
Belgian playmaker Kevin de Bruyne has previously spoken out about the bloated soccer schedule, as has his former City teammate Rodri.
In a cruel twist of fate, Rodri suffered a serious knee injury that sidelined him for almost a year — a week after saying players were close to striking over their busy soccer schedule. In the 2023/24 season, the Spanish midfield anchor played well over 50 matches for club and country.
'Fifa refuses to listen and engage with the players, the main labour resource of our industry. People who are there on the pitch, creating a powerhouse of European and global entertainment culture, and pushing their bodies to the limit,' said Fifpro Europe president David Terrier.
'But we have listened to our players. In countless discussions and locker-room visits, we have received the same messages for a long period of time, that they are playing too much and do not have enough time to recover,' Terrier stated.
Some sectors of society have always been critical of sports stars, saying athletes are paid exuberant amounts of money just to play with a ball. However, not all sportspeople earn as much as Cristiano Ronaldo or LeBron James. They are anomalies rather than the norm. Globally, most sportspeople earn moderate amounts, in what is already an extremely short career path.
In an ultra-capitalist world different sectors of society make different amounts of income. Based on this, they decide how much they want to pay their employees. Regardless, even high-earning sports stars deserve to be protected by labour laws.
All the aforementioned overarching themes will be at the forefront between 15 June and 13 July as the US does a 'sound check' for 2026 — when it is set to co-host the national teams' World Cup alongside Canada and Mexico.