News: 2025 FIFA Club World Cup: General [Multiple Rs]

I don't know. An artificial intelligence search I just ran seems to confirm that FIFA has renamed all previous World Champions as "FIFA Intercontinental Champions." However when I look at the links from which the AI concluded it, they are Instagram and Facebook links, so you may be right that this is just Internet chatter; seems to be how urban legends are born. The Wikipedia article on the subject seems to indicate that the previous editions of the CWC remain valid in naming World Champions, and no contributors have updated this information including official links. I had just assumed that the information was correct but trying now like you did to find an official statement from FIFA, I can't find one either. I guess, it's to be continued. If this indeed is FIFA's official position, we should see something official coming out in the next few days. If it's just Internet chatter, then we won't see it.

 

Interesting. When I try to click on the link, it says broken link. Maybe someone from FIFA responsible for their social media page jumped impulsively on it but then higher officials ordered it to be taken down?

 

Now I ran another AI search with a better AI bot than the one I previously used, and it seems to confirm Paul Calixte's take on it. Here is what the AI now said:

"There hasn't been any official statement or change from FIFA renaming previous Club World Champions to "FIFA Intercontinental Champions." The term "FIFA Intercontinental Champions" historically referred to winners of the Intercontinental Cup, which was a precursor to the current FIFA Club World Cup. The Club World Cup itself has evolved over the years, but FIFA has maintained the title of "FIFA Club World Champions" for the winners of the previous format of the tournament.

Chelsea indeed won the first expanded format of the FIFA Club World Cup in 2025, but previous winners have also been recognized as FIFA Club World Champions based on the tournaments they won. The chatter you're seeing on social media might be speculative or based on informal discussions rather than official FIFA announcements. For the most accurate information, it's best to refer to official FIFA communications or announcements regarding tournament names and titles."

 

A.I. can only help with things like driving cars amidst crazy California drivers and flying things in space. Making meaning of 2 world cups in the same year is a bit beyond A.I. Maybe AGI will figure it out...

 

AI is a better search engine than what we had before with the non-AI powered search engines like the old Google, Yahoo, etc. The fact that one AI search (using Google's AI engine) only produced links to Facebook and Instagram posts, and another AI search with a more powerful bot (ChatGPT) produced the answer that FIFA has NOT made any official renaming of previous titles, to me tends to confirm that this is indeed just Internet chatter and FIFA has not done it.

Most likely, the AI bot would have found the link if FIFA indeed had issued an official statement. In my search I specifically asked the AI bot to look for official FIFA statements and it didn't find any.

Like I said, if this rumor stems from FIFA considering the move informally, then if they decide in the near future to do it formally, an official statement will be issued. If we don't see any official statement, then it simply didn't happen and it is an urban legend.

 

For some reason the link doesn't work for me; maybe it's a local issue in my laptop, but I'll take your word for it.

 

They would need at least 32 clubs to generate the kind of revenue to make it worthwhile for the UEFA clubs.

 

The 2024 FIFA Intercontinental Cup "key information" article positioned it as a continuation of the annual club world championship. Implying the expanded CWC is the quadrennial club world championship. Here it is - as clear as a pint of milk:
https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments.../2024/articles/information-tournament-details

More recently at the 2025 CWC, Manchester City still wore the 2023 badge that stated "FIFA World Champions" while Real Madrid wore a FIC badge that said "FIFA Intercontinental Champions".

As I stated in the 2029 thread, a complete statistical reset for the expanded Club World Cup will not be accepted by the former winners. And the concept of having both, an annual and quadrennial world champion will be lost on just about anyone.

So when all is said and done, I expect the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, starting in 2024, to be treated as a new competition, and hopefully FIFA will rename it FIFA Champions Cup as already done in the Women's game. To avoid any confusion.

Hopefully all will be clear by September (when the FIC starts) or December.

 

MLS players secured boost in Club World Cup prize money - sources - ESPN

 

In an unprecedented attack, world players’ union Fifpro claims the rosy picture painted by FIFA President Gianni Infantino of the Club World Cup is “a fiction.”

On the sidelines of the tournament, FIFA froze the union out of a meeting about player welfare, prompting a furious reaction from the body that is mandated to protect the interests of players. Fifpro president Sergio Marchi even compared Infantino to Roman emperor Nero, who famously “fiddled while Rome burned”.

In a statement, Marchi said: “FIFPRO cannot fail to point out, with absolute clarity, that this competition hides a dangerous disconnection with the true reality that most footballers around the world are going through.

“What was presented as a global festival of football was nothing more than a fiction staged by FIFA, driven by its president, without dialogue, without sensitivity and without respect for those who sustain the game with their daily efforts. A grandiloquent staging that inevitably recalls the ‘bread and circuses’ of Nero’s Rome, entertainment for the masses while behind the curtain the inequality, precariousness and lack of protection of the real protagonists deepens.”

...

Infantino declared his own spectacle “the most successful Club World Cup competition.” He said: “The golden era of global club football has started.”

Last year, Fifpro and other stakeholders launched a complaint against FIFA over the international match calendar and the Club World Cup at the European Commission. At the weekend, the world governing body claimed there was a “consensus” with player unions for a minimum window of 72 hours of rest between matches and that players should have a rest period of at least 21 days at the end of the season, a smaller window than Fifpro had asked for. Fifpro, however, were not a part of the meeting.

...

The heat was another major concern during the tournament, with teams and players often subjected to oppressive temperatures in a match schedule designed to accommodate European TV audiences. In June, in the US, temperatures sometimes topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Marchi said: “The tournament also took place under unacceptable conditions, with matches being played in extremely hot weather and at temperatures that put the physical integrity of the players at risk. This situation must not only be denounced, but must also be strongly condemned. Under no circumstances must this happen again at next year’s FIFA World Cup.

“From Fifpro we have been warning about the saturation of the calendar, the lack of physical and mental rest for the players, and the lack of dialogue on the part of FIFA. This way of organising tournaments, without listening to the federation that brings together player associations worldwide, is unilateral, authoritarian and based solely on a logic of economic profitability, not human sustainability.”

This is the consequence of FIFA acting unilaterally without consultation.

 

Sorry man, but it's not up to a federation to decide how large a league is going to be. That's the sole prerogative of a national FA.
Remember, UEFA is a cooperation of individual FA's. Not the other way around, like the FA's are an extention of UEFA.
For revenue reasons a league has a certain number of clubs. Cutting in the size of a league means less revenues for the remaining clubs.
Does anyone believe the European clubs/UEFA is going to accept a money drain from their lucrative competions towards FIFA?
Infantino tried a hot air balloon with a bi-annual worldcup, with in the back of his head stealing the billions UEFA and the European FA's make from the Euro's.
Of course he has the backing for such a thing from minor confederations and their FA's with the lure of having those fictional billions.
However, the overwhelming part of FIFA's revenues come from the European countries. UEFA and their FA's rather blow up FIFA than giving their billions away.

 

This confirms what I've been saying: players are unhappy with the long season and shortened vacations and family time.

 

It's not up to UEFA to decide the size of a league. That's an FA/domestic clubs decision.

 

Yes, but they also like the very high paychecks the clubs write them. And to do so the clubs need the games played. The CWC isnot essential for the clubs in the leagues, unless you're one of the random chosen ones to participate.
So nobody is going to make changes to club competitions to suite FIFA.

 

I think you're mixing up federations and confederations.

UEFA is a continental confederation. The national associations are federations.

In Italy the federation is the FIGC. It stands for Federazione Italiana Giuco Calcio (which translates into Italian Federation of the Football Game). The leagues are separate entities and they are 9, the top three being professional leagues (Series A, B, and C) and the next 6 being amateur leagues (D, Eccellenza, Promozione, Prima Categoria, Seconda Categoria, and the lowest of them all, Terza Categoria). So the leagues organize their championships and manage dates, venues, promotion and relegation, sponsorship deals, TV contracts, etc., but they can't implement any major changes without the approval of the FIGC, which is the governing body of Italian football, not only responsible for the national teams (male, female, youth level too), but also for coordinating and managing the activity of the leagues. So, yes, the leagues A and B would have to be the ones to initiate the idea of a reduction of numbers to 18 clubs (below those, it's 60 clubs for C divided in three equal groups, and variable numbers for D and lower) but the FIGC would have to approve it.

As we all know and we've been saying, even though a reduction in the calendar would be desirable for the sake of preventing player exhaustion and burnout, it is like you said not likely that these leagues and ultimately the federation would support a reduction because it would indeed result in lost revenue and power, and as we know, football entities are always craving more money and more power.

It's like the fox watching over the hens. The fox has a vested interest and will eat up misbehaving hens. They won't rule to shoot themselves in the foot and lose money and power. The clubs themselves won't want to lose revenue either, so, we know that reductions in numbers won't happen.

 

It's not making changes to suit FIFA. It's making changes to decrease the number of games players will have to play.

Again, I know it won't happen.

Maybe the only way it would happen, is if all players went on strike together and said they wouldn't play a single game until the leagues and the federation agreed with a reduction in the calendar. This would be unlikely to succeed due to individual egoism and human nature. P.layers would risk having paychecks withheld or being fired and not all players would agree with it. Even if all agreed, it would become a match between wills, and the leagues, clubs and the federation might want to wear off the players until the players capitulated, and threaten them with bans, affecting their livelihood.

In the United States, there's been successful player strikes like in baseball, in hockey, with delayed or shortened seasons until the leagues agreed with the desires of the players. But I doubt that European football players would have the same kind of clout and organization that American players of the major sports enjoy. Over here the player unions are quite powerful and the leagues can't organize a lot without counting on the agreement of the players associations in a collective labor agreement. I think players of football in Europe are very far from this level of power and influence.

 

Uhm, I'm not mixing up anything. Read carefully what I wrote.

 

Yes, you're right.

My suggestion about capping domestic premier leagues - particularly those in England, Italy and Spain - at 18 clubs is based almost entirely on how to accommodate the CWC, it isn't related to the UEFA club competitions (UCC) which - as I've mentioned before - aren't part of the congested calendar issue because:

- the new UCC formats were agreed by UEFA, ECA and European leagues and were the outcome of four years of work and consultation between all the parties;
- since April Fifpro have had a member of the UEFA Executive Committee together with ECA and European Leagues, ensuring all stakeholders - players, clubs and leagues - have direct input into decision-making. This doesn't happen at FIFA and the backlash against the CWC and expanding its other competitions without stakeholder ccnsultation is the consequence.

 

Only about the CWC, there's no such backlash against the re-formatted UEFA club competitions.

CWC effectively eliminates a summer of holidays for the players involved and potentially leaves some players facing three consecutive 10-month seasons (continental championship - CWC - WC) instead of having every odd year free from a summer tournament (and when the Women's EURO / WWC has hitherto enjoyed the spotlight).

Incidentally, this summer I've only been following the Women's EURO, and since last week the start of the four UEFA club competition qualifying rounds.

 

The conclusion I've reached and which the CWC crystalises is that FIFA needs to modernise and realise it can no longer govern the global game without meaningful input from clubs, leagues and players. Having only national associations represented on the FIFA Council doesn't work anymore.

 

Women's EURO > CWC on TV!

Who'd have believed it!

Lionesses UK TV audience more than double that of Chelsea in CWC final - Inside World Football

 

Real competion vs fake one.
Those women teams had to fight their way into the EURO.
Those CWC........hand picked by a bunch of frauds.

 

Yeah, relates to what I was saying a few months ago about the ceiling/potential for the Club WC being quite limited. Any given club is just going to have a way smaller fan base than the national team. Like way smaller.

So, when Infantino talks about the CWC's potential in WC terms (both popularity- and revenue-wise), he is dreaming. If anything, the CWC has already peaked because I don't think there is any country in the world where it can be shone in a greater light than when its played in the U.S. Maybe Brazil.