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

Which tournament is worse? Club World Cup or Leagues Cup?

 

Club World Cup. Both are redundant (cash grabs), by definition, but CWC adds 5-7 fixtures for the players that are already playing the most and have the shortest summer breaks.

 

Club World Cup, at least in its current form.

Leagues Cup has no major pretense - there's no qualification to worry about (just exist in a participating league) and it serves as one of three subregional qualification methods to the regional championship.

Current Club World Cup pretends to have the best clubs in the world, but most will be 2-4 years out of the qualification and will have noticeably different rosters than those qualifying teams, maybe even having dropped down their local ranks entirely, plus the qualification is insanely lopsided by region. If you want more inter-confederation play and properly in-form teams, smaller yearly tournaments (maybe every other year) would be so much better.

 

Actually, the CWC is replicated by that other annual thing with 7 teams in it.

 

FIFA should have received all of the media rights tenders by the end of the month so it should be possible to announce which channels it will be broadcast on globally by the end of October.

The Apple negotiations were strange because as far as I am aware they want global exclusivity for the content they buy from rights holders but it is essential there is some FTA coverage of this initial edition for obvious reasons.

 

So when will the venues be announced? I mean if FIFA is serious, they should at least lock that part down, it's not like they don't know the region (East Coast). I think maybe they want to wait for the Gold Cup venues to be announced on the West Coast, but CONCACAF usually does that two months before hand.

Hopefully they didn't get cold feet or something. I don't want the 2024 Copa America to be remembered as the last major soccer event we hosted before 2026.

 

I wouldn't be suprised if they wait until this first international window is over and - when the focus returns to club football next week - they start to make a serious of announcements about the venues, competition schedule, date and venue of the draw, presentation of the new trophy and which channels will be broadcasting it.

Since the end of the last club season the EUROs and Copa America, Olympics, UEFA club competition draws and this first international window haven't given them a window of opportunity to make significant announcements.

 

https://en.as.com/soccer/fifa-call-urgent-meeting-over-2025-club-world-cup-n/

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/sep/20/club-world-cup-host-cities-venues-fifa-tournament

So looks like FIFA still hasn't got broadcasters yet but they reportedly have the venues. I guess they decided to go to the West Coast even though we have the Gold Cup going on there. Seattle makes sense for the Sounders to play some games at home, but I guess the Rose Bowl got it as compensation for not getting 2026 and in case an LA team wins MLS Cup. Plus I feel SoFi, BMO, or the Dig probably got chosen for LA for the Gold Cup already.

Besides the Rose Bowl and Lumen Field, the rest are Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, and MetLife Stadium and Red Bull Arena in New York/New Jersey.

I guess they're waiting for Inter Miami.

 

So looks like they'll let those close to Qatar play at home and then everyone else has to travel. I guess that works, maybe they'll probably change the region in later editions.

 

This broadcasting and sponsorship situation is critical.

Perhaps it would've been better to agree the deal with Apple TV and accept that there wouldn't be live FTA coverage and that would facilitate sponsors, although I don't know how large the Apple TV subscription base would be.

The reported fee from Apple of USD$1bn might have seemed below expectations at the time, but now it might look quite good.

 

As for Philly, probably Subaru since they probably don't want an empty Linc if they want to balance out NFL and MLS stadiums. If they do go with the Linc, probably want to make sure the European teams play in NFL stadiums as much as possible. Maybe the Liga MX teams will have turnout but idk.

Probably just gives it to the runner-up or highest ranked American team.