A new-look FIFA Club World Cup, featuring 32 teams, kicks off in the United States on June 14 and runs through to the final on July 13.
In advance of the tournament, Al Jazeera takes a look at the top five talking points:
1. Cramped schedule raises concerns over player welfare
FIFA’s decision to expand the Club World Cup from a six- or eight-team tournament to a supersized 32-team edition has been criticised by FIFPRO, the global football players’ union, and the World Leagues Forum (WLF).
Legitimate questions have been raised about the extra workload on players due to the increased number of matches, and the corresponding reduction in rest and recovery time for players in a shortened off season.
“The FIFA Council’s decision to schedule the first edition of the 32-team FIFA Club World Cup between 15 June and 13 July 2025 without implementing further player workload safeguards demonstrates a lack of consideration for the mental and physical health of participating players, as well as a disregard for their personal and family lives,” FIFPRO said in a statement in December.
A report released by FIFPRO and Football Benchmark in April found that several Club World Cup-bound players are among the most overworked for the 2024-25 season.
The report’s findings estimated that Real Madrid’s Federico Valverde, who made 43 back-to-back appearances up until April 1 with fewer than five days of recovery time before these matches, could potentially reach 65 back-to-back appearances for club and country by the end of the season, racking up close to 7,000 minutes and 78 games.
The WLF, an organisation representing 44 major professional leagues that is chaired by Premier League chief Richard Masters, said the organisation was unhappy that it had been overlooked in FIFA’s decision-making process.
According to the Reuters news agency, Masters accused FIFA of prioritising its own commercial interests, adding that the June-July schedule would affect player availability for national leagues at the start of the season in August.
2. Will the matches be competitive?
While the expansion of the Club World Cup to 32 sides allows more teams a chance at testing themselves against some of the biggest names in global club football, it also raises questions about the competitiveness of the tournament.
With every group having at least two clubs from Europe or South America, teams from the other continental confederations, such as Asia or Africa, could find themselves having very little chance of glory against the heavyweights of the game.
For example, in Group G, Moroccan side Wydad AC and UAE Pro League Al Ain are pitted against Manchester City and Juventus, who have been supremely successful on the domestic and continental stage.
Teams from the European confederation (UEFA) have historically dominated the Club World Cup, winning 16 of the 20 editions played to date. The remaining four have all been won by clubs from the South American confederation (CONMEBOL).
So, history suggests that the presence of European or South American sides could lead to lopsided matchups in this year’s edition.
3. Where are the superstars and superteams?
While Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe will play at the tournament, fans will be denied an opportunity to watch many of the elite performers from the 2024-25 season, such as Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, the Premier League’s Golden Boot winner, or teenage prodigy Lamine Yamal, who won three trophies this year with Barcelona.
Salah created history as the first player in Premier League history to finish a season with the most goals and assists as well as win the Player of the Season award. But one of the most in-form forwards in the world will not be among the players in the US as Liverpool could not qualify for the tournament, with Manchester City and Chelsea earning spots from the English quota.
Further confusing the selection of teams was FIFA’s abrupt decision to give the host nation a spot and award it to Inter Miami, underlining the opaque nature of the qualifying criteria for the tournament which won’t feature Liverpool, Barcelona or Napoli, who have all just been crowned champions in three of the most prestigious leagues in Europe.
Inter Miami gained entry by topping Major League Soccer’s regular season standings, despite losing in the first round of the playoffs – a decision critics say shows FIFA’s desperation to have Inter’s Argentina great Messi at their inaugural showpiece.
Apart from the winners of each confederation’s premier club competitions, teams qualified according to a ranking based on their performances over a four-year period. Barcelona, the current La Liga champions, missed out on a spot due to the four-year club coefficient rankings and two-team restrictions, as their archrivals Real Madrid qualified for the Club World Cup alongside Atletico Madrid.
The Catalan giants, fielding some of the most exhilarating footballers on the planet, such as 17-year-old wonderkid Yamal or the goal-scoring genius of Raphinha, are a huge omission from the club-based tournament.
Prodigious talents like Romelu Lukaku and Scott McTominay, who ushered Napoli’s stunning 2024-25 Serie A title charge in Italy, will also not play.
4. Introduction of a special transfer window
In the build-up to the tournament, FIFA announced the creation of a special transfer window, allowing participating clubs to make last-minute transfers before their teams board the flight to the US.
FIFA has said signings can be made from June 1 to June 10 as well as June 27 to July 3, explaining that the objective of the latter window is to encourage clubs and players whose contracts are expiring “to find an appropriate solution to facilitate the players’ participation”.
The introduction of this transfer window is unique as signings usually either take place in the close season or the middle of the season, known as the summer and winter windows for European clubs.
FIFA’s move has led to speculation that Cristiano Ronaldo could be one of those players to put pen to paper during the window on a short-term deal for one of the participating clubs. Spanish newspaper Marca reported in late May that a club in Brazil had submitted an offer to sign Ronaldo. Botafogo – one of four Brazilian clubs competing at the tournament – have been linked with the veteran forward.
Ronaldo, 40, has hinted he could leave Al Nassr after declaring that a “chapter is over” hours after the Saudi Pro League finished. Al Nassr have not qualified for the Club World Cup, unlike fellow Saudi side Al Hilal, and FIFA President Gianni Infantino recently said “there are discussions” over Ronaldo playing at the Club World Cup.
The Portugal star confirmed on Saturday that he had received “quite a few” offers from participating clubs to play for them at the tournament, but had decided against accepting any.
Should a Ronaldo transfer ultimately occur, the Club World Cup could see Messi and Ronaldo face-off in the US market, greatly boosting media interest, ticket sales, TV viewership figures, and enhancing the overall appeal of the tournament. The duo, who are arguably the greatest players of their generation, last played in the same competition at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
A club which has already benefitted from this special transfer window is Real Madrid, which was able to reach an agreement with Liverpool to sign defender Trent Alexander-Arnold early and make him available for the tournament.
The right back was scheduled to join the Spanish giants on a six-year deal as a free agent after his Liverpool contract expired on June 30, but according to The Athletic, Real paid Liverpool 10 million euros ($11.4m) to fast-track the process and get him on board for the Club World Cup.
5. Dress rehearsal for next year’s FIFA World Cup
Fans in the US will get a glimpse of what the 2026 FIFA World Cup on home soil will look like when they attend the Club World Cup matches this year.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be co-hosted by the US alongside Canada and Mexico, running for more than a month with 100+ matches.
Among the 12 stadiums that will host the new-look Club World Cup, some have also been chosen as venues for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will have 48 participants for the first time.
MetLife Stadium, an 82,500-seater in New Jersey, will host the semifinals and the final of the Club World Cup as well as the final of next year’s prestigious World Cup.
Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, Seattle’s Lumen Field and Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium are the other venues which will be involved in both tournaments.
The venues, though, might not be filled to their full capacity as organisers have struggled to sell tickets, with club fan tickets, general public tickets, and hospitality sections all still up for sale on the official FIFA site, nearly two weeks out from the start of the event.
