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

Huh? The majority of the CWC teams qualified by winning a continental title. And the rest were picked based on aggregated performance rankings in continental competitions.

 

Yes, you did mix it up. Read again what you wrote (what follows is a direct copy-and-paste of that part of your post; I just added the bold font for emphasis):

From feyenoordsoccerfan:

"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."

You seem to be calling UEFA a federation. It is a confederation.

You say it's not up "to a federation" to decide how large a league is going to be. You say it's up to a national FA. Well, a national FA is a federation.

Contrary to what you wrote, it is up to a federation to decide how large a league is going to be, given that the national federations need to give approval to a league's attempt to make major changes; they won't happen without the federation's approval, or else the league risks sanctions and bans.

Maybe it's different in England; I don't know. But I explained how the Italian federation, the FIGC, oversees, coordinates and manages what the 9 Italian football leagues do (Lega Serie A, and the lower levels). The leagues can't make major structural changes without the federation's endorsement.

Leagues in Italy do have limited autonomy. They can establish the calendar (when each game will be played), they can decide on venues (if for example a venue becomes unavailable like the Bologna stadium did last season due to floods; the league will decide on alternative venues if necessary, or on postponing a game), they can even negotiate agreements with TV packages, contracts with sponsors for naming rights of the league (which is why Serie A is currently called Serie A Enilive, Serie B is called Serie B BKT and Coppa Italia is called Coppa Italia Frecciarossa); they can scheduled which referees will officiate each game, and so on. But they cannot make major changes like changing the number of clubs in the league, without the approval of the federation.

The federation even rules on criteria for promotions and relegations between leagues. Recently the FIGC ruled on Serie C's relegation criteria and how certain clubs relegated to Serie D were to re-enter Serie C without ever playing in Serie D, if other Serie C clubs failed to secure approved registration (for example due to clubs going bankrupt or failing to secure the required minimum number of seats in their stadiums). The criteria FIGC imposed prevented Milan Futuro, our under-23 team, from re-entering Serie C, given its status as a "second team" of the same club; so Milan Futuro will indeed have to play in Serie D next season. Had the FIGC not ruled like this and merely allowed clubs that didn't meet the criteria to be deleted from Serie C without re-entry criteria for relegated clubs, the size of Serie C would have been affected. 3 clubs didn't meet criteria last season, so without re-entry the size of Serie C would have changed from 60 clubs to 57 clubs..

So, yes it is up to a federation to decide how large a league is going to be. At least, that's the case in Italy. The federation can even force relegation of a club from a level to the one below, like Milan was relegated to Serie B as a consequence of the Totonero scandal of illegal betting in 1980. Effectively, they removed Milan that year from a league and sent us to another one, even though Serie A and Serie B are two different leagues that have their own semi-autonomous administrations; the leagues had to respect what the FIGC imposed.

If say, the FIGC wanted to change the relegation and promotion criteria for a given year, say, they wanted that year to see 5 clubs relegated from A to B and 3 clubs promoted from B to A, that would indeed change the size of Serie A to 18 clubs, and the league would have to obey the federation on this (currently it's 3 relegated and 3 promoted, for a league size of 20 clubs).

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Maybe you just made a minor mistake when typing, and you meant "it's not up to a confederation to decide how large a league is going to be." But what you did write did mix up confederations and federations.

And even if you did correct your statement to confederations, you'd still be wrong on this. Sure, confederations don't rule on the size of national leagues (that's up to the national federations) but still, they rule on the size of transnational leagues. UEFA, a confederation, is the one that decides how large the UEFA Champions League is going to be. Sure, UEFA did consult federations and clubs, but the decision is indeed up to UEFA; the other entities were merely consultants on this, without the power to decide the issue.

And also remember, when you say UEFA is a cooperation of individual federations, you seem to minimize the regulatory role of UEFA as if UEFA merely followed what the national entities wanted. Remember when clubs proposed the creation of a Super League only with the prestigious clubs? UEFA vetoed it and came down hard on the clubs, imposing fines and threatening bans. UEFA also imposes financial limits on domestic clubs, with sanctions if violated. Milan this year came out of the UEFA sanctions, by posting 3 consecutive seasonal profits. If we hadn't shaped up and hadn't followed UEFA financial rules, we risked further sanctions, loss of points, and relegation.

So yes, confederations even have power over domestic leagues.

 

Inter Miami was handpicked.

 

18 teams max for all the top-flight leagues in Europe seems perfectly fine to me. Realistically most leagues nowadays have at most 2-3 teams that are legitimate title contenders and maybe another 3-5 that can contend for CL spots. No one is really going to care in the grand scheme of things if Alaves isn't in La Liga anymore or if Leeds and Ipswich are going to have a harder time getting promoted back to the Prem.

 

While the Auckland City/New Zealand Football split has yet to be agreed:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/56...and-city-players-will-get-from-club-world-cup

 

no just no:

Eyeing the cash, Real Madrid 'proposes' Club World Cup every 2️⃣ years - Yahoo Sports

 

The EPL is governed by the member clubs with the FA having a veto over rule changes but, crucially, I don't believe the FA can enforce rule changes itself.

It takes a two thirds majority to change the EPL rules, so 14 clubs need to support any changes. When you say no one cares I'm afraid that the clubs who will be affected through a reduction in numbers, either by putting their place in jeopardy or just because of the loss of revenue from the two home games that would not now occur, not only care but have a vote to stop it and you only need 7 of them.

 

He's probably delusionaling himself by thinking if I put together a CWC with more clubs in it than the UEFA CL, the world can't wait to watch it....NOT.
His actions the last few years can be summarized by him looking at what the biggest money sources are for UEFA FA's and clubs and trying to break in with something similar, but then with a global sauce/gravy poured over it.

 

A very long post showing you didnot read what I actually wrote.
I mention UEFA as the Federation of FA's, which is a confederation of FA's.
FA's are the national federations.
For the rest of your post you'r obviously not aware of what UEFA is and can do.
So your whole post is absolutely bongos.

"Sure, UEFA did consult federations and clubs, but the decision is indeed up to UEFA; the other entities were merely consultants on this, without the power to decide the issue."
Dude, the FA's are UEFA and each has voting power. Consultants....

 

Lobbying they can, but the FA's are member organizations of clubs, so they need ratification by the clubs to make changes.
They can't impose them.

 

Isnot FIFA moving to New York in order to escape EU scrutiny?
I heared rumours of moving into Trvmp buildings.

 

Yep, already a done deal

 

That word is usually what happens when I referee and tend to see fouls that are not really there

 

FIFA is HQ is in Switzerland, where tons of foreign money are laundered/hidden for decades, so there is your so called EU scrutiny.

Conmebol execs were arrested and extradited from Switzerland to USA (c.2015) for laundering millions thru US banks.

When was the last time a UEFA exec was arrested/extradited for abusing EU financial institutions?

 

Fifpro ain't doing spit. All bark and no bite, otherwise why it took no action after UEFA added 2 continental championships to its calendar?

Once FIFA shares a slice of its PIF subsidy, Fifpro will stay quiet again. It might as well call itself PIFpro by 2034.

 

Can you name even one abuse?
Anyway Switzerland isnot part of the EU.

 

Agreed, that inclusion was suspect given the lower stature of the MLS Supporters Shield. But I don’t put too much weight on the selection process for the host country entrant, since they never really “deserve” to be there anyway.

Ironically it was Inter Miami who performed the best out of the MLS entrants.

 

That's why I gave two alternatives: "Neither will choose to reduce their league size because their tournaments will either implode or turn into a joke."

Back in 2015, multiple Conmebol execs were extradited to USA accused of fraudulent contracts to broadcast its continental championships. Contracts signed with ARG sport media companies, who ensured higher broadcasting slots+revenue for ARG teams competing at the continental level.

ARG league chose to stay at 28-30 teams to offset broadcasting revenue loss after those fraudulent contracts were voided.

Nonetheless, less money into ARG league, less competitive ARG clubs in the continental stage.

Add the fact that its rivals now receive better broadcasting slots+revenue in continental matches, and you can see why its 1970s monopoly over Libertadores is over.

 

Also, just to highlight # of teams in the top flight and # of matches played in a year might not be directly related. Despite the fact that Argentina has a ridiculous 30 teams in the top-flight, each team only plays 32 league matches per calendar year, since it is single round-robin plus 4 "derby" matches. On top of that, the better teams could play up to 8 playoff games (but most teams would have no more than 2 or 3 playoff games).

So, the # of league matches is about the same as a double-round-robin, 18-team division such as the Bundesliga (34).

Of course, this is all based on the current format, which could be completely overhauled 5 times in the next 5 years.