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

The Confederations Cup is dead. The CWC has taken its spot on the calendar. In this case yes, the CWC serves as an organizational "test" of sorts.

I'm starting to think Morocco may be favorite to host 2029 for the same reason. After that the CWC should stand on its own and, in any case, can't be hosted in Saudi Arabia in the 2033 summer. On a related note, Qatar gets to host the 2033 FIFA Arab Cup as well - which would have been the perfect "test" for Saudi Arabia 2034.

 

For me? The Leagues Cup - hands down. An absolute waste of space.

The Club World Cup fulfills a sporting function replicated in no other competition. It crowns the world champion of club football, and has been doing so in one form or the other since 1960. Does it need to be such bloated format as per 2025? That is certainly up for debate.

The Leagues Cup is a contrived and superfluous addition to the calendar with a truly unbalanced (i.e. unfair) format that is mostly a repetition of the Concacaf Champions Cup. Worse, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Instead, being a "qualifying event" it further negatively impacts the Concacaf Champions Cup by skewing allocation numbers to a ridiculous degree. This year MLS had 10 spots and will do so again next year. Such a generous allocation for a single league has not been possible in any confederation's premier club competition in the entire history of the sport.

Not even in Conmebol where allocation tends to be very kind to Brazil and Argentina.

 

True. I keep forgetting about it.

PS: Six teams

Another guess for tomorrow, new trophy design!

 

Ready for a new era of club football 💫

📲 @FIFACWC #FIFACWC | #TakeItToTheWorld pic.twitter.com/scBs7PU6ro

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) September 4, 2024

Just the logo reveal?

(Pretty underwhelming. By the Gold Cup design team? )

 

It does. The just revealed logo does match.

 

All the details:
https://inside.fifa.com/about-fifa/...dio-signature-for-the-new-fifa-club-world-cup

 

FIFA defiant over Club World Cup despite legal action:
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/202...ant-over-club-world-cup-despite-legal-action/

The details really should have been hammered out before the European summer break. FIFA (and the ECA?) spent way too much time talking to Apple.

 

Good question.

They waited until December with this year's Copa America. The host team, which presumably gets to play at least the group stage in its home market, won't be known until December. MLS Cup isn't until December 7th, and if they engineer a playoff between that winner and the Supporters' Shield holder (all but wrapped up by Miami) then you have to add a few more days until the host team is known.

I don't think they will just hand it to Inter Miami, as much as all parties involved would like that. They won't undermine MLS Cup that blatantly. Unless MLS Cup is won by a Canadian team, in which case they could conveniently argue it has to be an American side.

I suppose they could just announce the venues with the exception of the three group stage games for the host team.