Expanded FIFA Club World Cup: Tournament News & General Discussion [R]

FIFA have already trialed three team groups (1982 second round) but ditched the idea after one tournament.

 

Well, I guess we’ll see if anything changes with the expansion, but the current version doesn’t seem to be attracting too much interest on Reddit at least.

The first post shown in the screenshot is a post-match thread for the CWC opener. The second is the post-match thread for I think the Norwegian league pro/rel play-off final.

The numbers that are cut at the bottom are 178 (upvotes) and 46 (comments).

 

Yeah, FIFA’s really banking on big TV deals and large attendances for the big Euro clubs considering about a third of the tournament is going to be matches like “Wydad Casablanca vs Persepolis in Shenzhen” with like 5,000 people in the stands.

I guess only time will tell if this is a masterstroke from FIFA or a colossal debacle.

 

You mean the farcical ones.

 

Or even watch them on TV.**

That's the thing. Even "rabid" South American soccer fans won't care that much unless its their club that is participating. Huge difference between national teams and club teams. And that's why the potential of this Club WC is quite limited, even once some of the problems with the current format are eliminated (e.g. having a semifinal played at the same time as a Barca v Madrid clasico, etc).

** That said, if its a team from a 'smaller' nation like Ecuador or Portugal, then a good level of enthusiasm might be generated across the country even for a club competition (enough to get people to watch on TV at least). But how many teams from such countries will qualify?

 

I get all that. My point was there will always be bigger, more appealing matches elsewhere conflicting with the club WC under the existing format and timing. This year its el clásico, next year maybe it’ll be Liverpool v United or Juve v Inter.

 

It (as in, a country cap) has been mentioned since the start (such as this article from October https://en.as.com/en/2019/10/24/football/1571916175_506197.html)

The only really logical limits are 1 or 2 teams from a country - so the MLS statement would probably be correct.

And, given it gives an MLS team a better than even chance of adding US media interest to a competition that is going to need to generate a fist-full-o-cash (TM) it doesn't surprise me in the least.

J

 

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-...-Cup-and-2023-Asian-Cup-MMVLTQvcBO/index.html

CWC 2021: Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Shenyang, Ji'nan, Hangzhou, and Dalian

AC 2023: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen, and Suzhou

 

Interesting (or not) that Beijing in the AC but not in the CWC. Any ideas why?

 

My guess is they want to use smaller stadiums because they’re not sure bigger stadiums would get filled for the CWC.

But it’s still a tad strange they wouldn’t at least have the final/some of the later stages in Beijing.

 

no birds nest at all, neither in asian cup nor in club world cup? any good reason for that?