FIFA International Match Calendar: Proposed Changes & General Discussion

Here, here!

 

I think the real joke is this stupid new competition that nobody really wants. The euro clubs all wanted to boycott this earlier in the year.

Will players be forced to play in this ?

I can't see this thing being anything other than a flop. I dont see top players or top clubs taking this seriously and I see no real prestige here.

A glorified friendly tournament if you ask me.

If anything they should have expanded the Confederations cup, not this useless trash.

 

I just dont see it. The timing is just awful.

top euro clubs just finish the champions league, and you think suddenly they will be motivated for another FAR LESS PRESTIGIOUS club tournament right after.

I dont see it. Not physically or mentally possible for players to treat this thing with any seriousness.

They dont even have national pride to play for which makes top players at least turn it up a notch in World Cup years.

Just another meaningless club competition at the end of a grueling season.

I hope this falls flat on its face. I think its a disgrace.

 

Also there is the UEFA under 21 finals in June 2021.

 

Wow! This pointless tournament adds a full 6 weeks to the season! 7-8 weeks for EPL players whose team doesn't reach the FA cup final.
Why is this garbage starting so late?

 

well the confederations cup is scrapped so its a moot point, but I think they would have likely done what concacaf does.

Send the A team to the Confed cup and send a B+ team to the Nations cup.

 

players like Sadio Mane said this past summer that he would give away his champions league medal for an African nations cup championship.

Thats how much AFCON means to a lot of these players.

and you think he would rather play in some stupid club world cup (a glorified friendly tournament) instead of a chance at national glory ? Think again. Like I said I see no motivation or incentive for this tournament, for the top players at least.

Unless FIFA somehow forces players to play in their club world cup, I think there is going to be a lot of friction.

 

Did the announcement about the shift to summer AFCONs happen before or after we basically knew the Confeds Cup was toast)

 

Not sure when CAF changed but when the World Cup was moved to November/December the original thought was to hold the CWC in Qatar in 2021 as the test tournament with a decision to be made on the Confed Cup being held somewhere else in Asia. As plans developed the future of the Confed Cup looked grim and the expanded CWC started to get traction within FIFA. We finally ended up where we are now.

 

I don't think any player will give up on playing at the FIFA Club World Cup. This what they say in meantime is just bollocks. Clubs pay their salaries and stuff. If I see someone placing NT over club, I will gladly eat a pile of dog's crap. European clubs opposed idea, now nobody says a thing. Same surely goes for players. Money talks.

I think (I am sure, actually) 2021 AFCON will be played without biggest names as those should be a part of CWC teams.

I wish FIFA all the worst, by the way.

 

P.S.

I am disgusted with 0.5 spots for OFC. Take their confederation status already, FIFA! The way you treat them is disgraceful.

 

But they might as well be overlapping because, if I'm not mistaken, the practice is that players partake in one or the other, not both (there might be a couple of odd exceptions). And because both are NT competitions, it effectively means one NT fields a full B side in one of the competitions.

The Gold Cup is such a joke that its a pretty easy decision which competition to send your B team, but the conflict between AFCON and the CWC will be more problematic (and interesting), I suspect. Some players are pretty passionate about playing in the AFCON. And if they play for a big UEFA team, they are also pretty important to their NT.

 

European champion Sadio Mane stated he would trade his European championship with Liverpool for an Afcon championship with Senegal.

Thats the European championships !! and not some glorified friendly club tournament.

You dont get much bigger a player than Sadio Mane.

and please tell me why any top player would want to play this tournament right after completing the champions league ?

Its like having great sex with a 10, and then immedietly after somebody is forcing you to have sex with a 5. Why would you do it ?

 

People on the Liverpool forum are complaining about the TWO CWC games they have to play in Qatar THIS year because they’re worried about fixture congestion hurting their PL title chances. Some were even suggesting withdrawing from the CWC rather than dropping the Carabao Cup fixtures as was suggested publicly by Klopp. Which shows you how much they rate being “Club World Champions”.

Yet here we are with a 24-team CWC in two years. I really hate that they got rid of the Confeds Cup for this crap.

 

It seems like you're going with assumption that a certain player can decide on whether he will play in official competition [for a club that pays him] or not.

If a club says: Sadio, you are going to Guangzhou and Shenzen with us to win the World Cup, Sadio will go.

 

I dont think its that simple. These players can negotiate contracts. The clubs understand that the players are human and need rest. The clubs may try to persuade players to miss the AFCON and play the CWC but ultimately they will have to concede, like they did when the AFCON took place in the middle of the club season. I think the players have far more sway than you give them credit for. The clubs will eventually have to figure out which competitions are of more importance and save their top players for the more important competitions. Top players are not used for cup matches for instance because they recognize they need to rest players. If Mane says "I'm playing in the nations cup, I need to be excused from CWC" The club will eventually have to let him be excused because why would they want to burn out their asset and risk injury. They cannot stop Mane from playing for Senegal, but they can rest him from CWC to give him rest.

The only thing the clubs can really do is not sign African players, or put it into their contracts that THEY MUST PLAY CWC. If you think Liverpool will not sign or re sign Mane because he doesn't want to play in a useless CWC once every 4 years, think again. CAF already moved the competition to the summer to please the European clubs. Now all of a sudden FIFA comes up with a stupid tournament in the summer, which the European clubs initially wanted to boycott. A compromise will be made. I think the Euro clubs will let the AFrican players have a summer break from the CWC. The only way the Euro clubs will win out is if they somehow provide an incentive for the players to want to choose club over country, which is highly unlikely as these players are already highly paid, and national pride is a much bigger motivator IMO than some extra cash. Or if an individual player WANTS to play in CWC over Afcon.


Here is what Sadio Mane said about the situation. I got this from a french site, here is translation.

The reform of the World Club a few weeks ago is a stir. The latest reaction is that of Sadio Mané who has pronounced on this situation which risks to make disappear the usual craze around the CAN.

Winner of the Champions League with Liverpool last season, the Senegalese international will probably be involved in both competitions. A fact that the number 10 regretted this Tuesday on the Future Radio Media: "It will be horrible to have to play the CAN and the Club World Cup".

If the two competitions should be played in the same period, Sadio Mané made a choice and Liverpool is already warned: "There is no debate on it, the priority is to wear the colors national ".