2020 FIFA Club World Cup: Tournament News & Qualifiers [R]

Apparently one of the reasons behind Jorge Jesus's decision to leave Flamengo this week was because he wasn't going to have the opportunity to compete in the CWC (his main objective with the Brazilian side was precisely this title, after having lost it to Liverpool in 2019).

Of course one could argue that there were other factors present (his deep affiliation with Benfica + rumored extramarital affairs), but the press has been saying that the supposed decision to suspend this year's edition of the CWC played a major role in him choosing to not stay for at least a few months.

So there's that...

Like some have said above, the Libertadores schedule was confirmed this week by CONMEBOL and the tournament will not be over by December: both legs of the semifinals + the final will be played in January. Hell, even the quarter finals will be played as late as December 17th




So if the 2020 CWC were to take place, there are three options at the moment:

1) Push the tournament back to late-January/early-February, something most confederations will not accept since they will already be on a very tight schedule with their respective competitions (and they can't push domestic tournament back due to Copa America/Euros/Olympics following immediately in the summer)

2) Re-schedule the Libertadores fixture to have the 2020 Copa finish in time before the CWC. This would mean re-arranging the entire knockout stage to ensure it finishes by mid-December at latest.

- While not impossible, it would be a hassle because it'd create an extremely tight schedule: after losing their currently-scheduled one-week break between group stages and knockouts, participating teams would be forced to travel and play a high-level competition on a back-to-back basis for 7 consecutive weeks (while still disputing their domestic tournaments, lets not forget). Plus, teams that make it to the Quarter Finals would be forced to play both matches without key players due to international FIFA dates.
- CONMEBOL's representative would practically arrive without a break to the CWC (although something similar did happen to River in 2018 after the late final vs. Boca)
- CONMEBOL has been trying heavily to repair their flawed image in recent years, getting stricter on respecting scheduled game times and dates. Although the can still technically re-arrange the calendar, it wouldn't look good on their image and I'm sure they've been getting hints that the CWC isn't going to happen if they chose to go through with the January dates that they just recently approved.
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3) Go ahead with the CWC without a CONMEBOL representative: get rid of the first round (both teams advance directly to the second round) and give the semifinal berth to CONCACAF / AFC / CAF. For example:

Second Round: (A) AFC v. OFC

(B) Host v. CAF​

Semifinals: (Winner A) v. UEFA

(Winner B) v. CONCACAF​

So there are options to make the tournament happen with/without a CONMEBOL side, but it just seems illogical and really there will be complaints from diverse sides should any of those three decisions be made.

First lets see if the Libertadores is even completed. We may have a schedule, but some teams have confirmed COVID cases within their squads (the Peruvian side Binacional has 4 players confirmed ill), health officials have deemed the decision to have international travel in the middle of a pandemic bizarre and unnecessary, and others have raised logistic concerns (many airports remained closed, for example).

Too much uncertainty to be able to plan well..

 

There's no point to having a CWC w/o Conmebol. The simplest solution, if the December edition is on, is to simply invite the reigning Libertadores winner at the time, which would still be Flamengo.

Binacional's a great example of the absurdity of this schedule: they're not going to play a single league game in Juliaca (the league determined that the safest option for resuming operations is a Lima bubble), but will go out there to play their Libertadores matches

 

That would anger a lot of people. Besides, who is to say Flamengo won't still be participating in the latter stages of the Libertadores by the time the CWC begins?

 

So one of the running rumors when Concacaf hadn't yet announced the new WCQ format would be that the final round would start in April 2021. Maybe this was FIFA's idea after all, saving a presumed April 2021 window for the CWC?

And if so, then that opens up an opportunity for Concacaf to reschedule the CCL for the winter break, at a neutral site.

 

Gonzalo Belloso, current CONMEBOL Secretary and Development Director, tells Fox Sports that there is a possibility that the 2020 CWC will be held in February 2021.

Source (in Spanish)