Traditionally, the months of June and July in odd years constitute downtime in the football calendar. We will now have to get used to it, these beneficial breaks allowing us to digest the overdose of the previous 22 months will be considerably reduced. In one year, from June 15 to July 13, 2025, a new Club World Cup format will pit 32 teams against each other every four years – including PSG for the first edition in the United States – over one month, in the same time frame as ‘a Euro or a World Cup.
More than the excitement of a new adventure, this new competition above all arouses skepticism. In comments reported by the Spanish media Relief, Real Madrid showed its concern. “The season will start in August and end in July, it’s madness, they will kill the players,” says a member of the club. If there is a certain irony in seeing the White House, also the main promoter of the Super League, being indignant at an overloaded schedule, the question of the accumulation of matches undeniably arises.
Up to 80 matches per year
The Club World Cup will add up to seven matches – three group matches before the knockout phase from the semi-finals – for the finalist clubs. “It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” cursed David Terrier, vice-president of Fifpro Europe, in our columns last December. “With this Club World Cup, we will increase to almost 80 matches per season. According to doctors, this is just not possible for a normally constituted body,” he added. This sounding of bells is not new and is regularly pointed out by Didier Deschamps during his press briefings. As early as 2020, future retiree Toni Kroos protested: “We, the players, are just puppets in all these new things invented by Fifa and UEFA. Nobody consults us »
❌ Real Madrid, against the new Club World Cup.
💬 “They are going to kill the players.”
💬 “The season will start in August and end in July.”
Madrid has a year ahead of it in which it could play 72 games.
✍️ @JorgeCPicon https://t.co/jzHmh9jsUj
— Relief (@relevo) June 6, 2024
To this competition is added, for European clubs, the reform of the Champions League, with two additional group matches and the addition of play-offs to reach the eighth. “The best players will have a very short vacation and will have to miss the first days of the championship, or resume too quickly,” continued unionist David Terrier. Especially since we will have to move on, 12 months later, to the World Cup – the real one – also played in the United States.
The CAN in an impasse
Faced with this hellish schedule, Fifa was ordered by the World Association of Football Leagues and Fifpro to react at the beginning of May. Response from interested parties? “We reject any suggestion that Fifa would ‘impose’ (…) the international calendar on the football community without adequate consultation or to comply with its own ‘commercial strategy’,” the body indicates in a letter.
In fact, this reorganization of a Club World Cup, previously contested anonymously in December between the continental champions, will influence the rest of the world. For example, it will be held at the same time as the Gold Cup, a Central, North American and Caribbean competition… also played in the United States. Players from Mexican clubs (Club Leon, CF Monterrey, CF Pachuca) or American clubs (Seattle) will thus be selected for two major tournaments at the same time.
Several tens of millions of euros per club
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) should decide to postpone the African Cup of Nations (CAN), scheduled for summer 2025 in Morocco, to winter 2026. “We always come back to the same problem, it will prevent certain players from going to the CAN,” notes Alexandre Lafitte, coach of Stade Abidjan, second in the last Ivorian championship. Sometimes blocked by major European clubs when the tournament takes place in January, players could also be blocked if the competition is played in June. The CAN, collateral victim of this new calendar, is in an impasse.
“Most African countries live on aid from Fifa, so as soon as it imposes a competition, CAF has no choice because it is not autonomous,” continues Alexandre Lafitte. But the clubs are also happy to play against European teams and this new money flow. »And for good reason, Fifa is counting on nearly 2 billion dollars in revenue in its low range. Between TV rights, ticketing and participation bonuses, the 32 teams should receive several tens of millions of euros in their coffers. And too bad for the health of the players.
