The countdown is on for the Club World Cup, but does anyone care?

RTÉ News​

9 hours ago

The countdown is on. It's now just seven days until the start of the competition that will answer the question on everyone's lips; who is the best football club in the world?
Is it the Chelsea side that limped to a fifth-placed finish in the Premier League this season? Or perhaps Porto, who triumphantly battled to third in this year's Liga Portugal? If stylish catenaccio football is more your thing then look to Juventus, who finished fourth in Serie A.
Not convinced by those European giants? Why not cast your gaze further afield to Auckland City FC, the team that currently sit behind Birkenhead United in the New Zealand Regional Leagues Northern League.
Over 29 days, 32 teams will play out 64 games before the best team in the world is crowned and while we can't know who that will be yet, we know who it won't be.
It won't be Premier League champions Liverpool, nor the winners of La Liga, Barcelona. Not even the Serie A champions Napoli, none of whom have been invited. But hey, there's Inter Miami who will play because, well, they have Lionel Messi.
FIFA's efforts to expand the Club World Cup from a small mid-season distraction to a fully-fledged summer tournament has left many people unconvinced by the need for it and FIFA's motivation behind it all.
Fundamentally, taking the Club World Cup from an annual six team kickabout between the winners of the six continental confederation tournaments to the bloated unwieldy structure facing us this summer is about money and influence.
FIFA have long looked enviously at UEFA and the Champions League, wondering how they could claim a slice of that pie. With the World Cup only being held every four years, there's a long-standing desire within the organisation to come up with another huge money-spinning event and for them to exert a measure of influence on some of the biggest clubs in the world.
But how do you create a major tournament from scratch? Well throwing a lot of money at it certainly helps.
FIFA have put a pot of $1billion to be shared about the 32 teams with the winners taking home a pay cheque for $125million, while $525million of that billion will be shared out between the clubs just for turning up.
That kind of money rivals the Champions League payouts and with this year's winners Paris Saint-Germain netting roughly $165million, FIFA have ensured that the Club World Cup is too rich for the invited clubs to ignore.
Throwing this kind of cash around in an attempt to grow interest and legitimacy within the tournament is the only real move FIFA could have made but there's questions over their long-term ability to offer such a prize fund.
The tournament looks likely to run at a loss for the organisers, who struggled to drum up interest among broadcasters when it came to the rights sales.
With reports claiming that FIFA had initially set a target of broadcast revenue of $4billion, they were unable to attract bids anywhere near that mark and eventually agreed a deal with online streaming platform DAZN for the rights.
Ticket sales have hardly been encouraging either, with The Athletic reporting on Wednesday that FIFA has been forced to slash prices for the tournament's opening fixture between Messi's Inter Miami and Egyptian team Al-Ahly.
Soccer remains very much down the pecking order of sports in the US and with local fans shrugging their shoulders and a dynamic ticket price structure in place, the cost of admission to the tournament opener has slumped from $349 in December to just $55.75.
Meanwhile a ticket for newly crowned European champions Paris Saint-Germain and Brazilian outfit Botafogo at the 90,000-seater Rose Bowl can be had for $33.45. Even that ticketing firesale may not be enough to spare organisers the sights of thousands of empty seats throughout the tournament.
While major international soccer tournaments usually attract huge numbers of supporters from abroad, the Club World Cup looks likely to struggle, thanks in no small part to the policies of Donald Trump's government.
FIFA's top brass would have had their collective heads in their hands on Wednesday when Trump announced a new travel ban on 12 nations, further deepening the sense of hostility felt at the border for travellers into the US.
With teams from Mexico, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco among those involved in the Club World Cup, travelling numbers are going to take a hit with supporters not wanting to risk disappearing into a private detention facility.
Even fans currently residing in the US, particularly those of Mexican teams who would usually fill stadiums, may think twice before turning up en masse, given the seemingly never-ending footage of Trump's masked ICE agents snatching people off the street.
We're left with the very real prospect of games being played in mostly empty stadiums by players frustrated about being there, concerned by burnout and fatigue related injuries that will come from going straight into a 32-team club tournament after a gruelling season.
The footballer's union FIFPRO has been against the expanded Club World Cup since its announcement, launching a legal claim against FIFA over the unilateral creation of the tournament, citing concerns over player welfare.
With players like Real Madrid star Kylian Mpappe speaking out about the lack of a meaningful break between the end of the season and the start of the tournament, there's the prospect of some players featuring in more than 80 games over the course of the season.
Separately MLS team Seattle Sounders have been protesting their involvement in the tournament over what they say is a lack of fairness on player payments, wearing "Club World Ca$h Grab" t-shirts during their warm-up in a recent league game.
Under the standing MLS collective bargaining agreement between the league, their bonus for the Club World Cup is capped at $1m for the entire team, meaning that players are likely to only receive 10% of the money their club get for their participation in the tournament.
Indeed it seems that the only people truly happy with the event are club accountants and moneymen, adding to the sense of grubbiness surrounding the entire project.
Football at the highest level has always been beholden to big money, but FIFA's newest innovation really lays that avarice bare. It's no coincidence that Real Madrid were willing to spend €10million on bringing Trent Alexander-Arnold to the club a month earlier than they had originally planned, given the financial incentives on offer. We have fans that won't be there, players that don't want to be there and clubs that are only there for the money.
Despite all that there's still the chance that the Club World Cup could capture the public imagination.
With no other major male international sporting event this summer, FIFA have timed the tournament to give them a captive audience. The early stages of the competition may struggle to attract eyeballs but as it progresses there is the prospect of some enticing fixtures.
The clash between PSG and Atletico Madrid on 15 June is one of the earlier highlights while Bayern Munich and Boca Juniors meet a few days later in Miami.
Manchester City and Real Madrid could easily meet in the first knockout round as could Bayern Munich and Chelsea. As the tournament gets into the higher stake games, we'll see just how serious the European teams are taking it.
Gianni Infantino and his crew will be eager for the big stars to line out but with the tournament kicking off just two weeks after the end of the European season, they may have to wait sometime to see the household names start.
FIFA are desperate for the Club World Cup to be a success and given everything they've invested in it, they need this tournament to start strongly and shake off the negative sentiment surrounding it. Whether that's a realistic prospect remains to be seen.