The draw for the new Club World Cup, expanded next year from seven to thirty-two teams and contested in the United States, will take place on December 5 in Miami, FIFA announced on Monday.
The date was all the more anticipated as many questions still surround this competition, whose revenues and benefits for the clubs remain a mystery: its TV broadcasters are not known and only one sponsor has been revealed, the Chinese group Hisense.
Now scheduled for December 5 from 1 p.m. local time (7 p.m. French time), the draw will determine the eight groups of four teams who will compete in the first phase of the tournament. The 16 clubs finishing in the first two places in each group will qualify for the knockout phase, from the round of 16 to the final, without a match for third place.
We will know the last participant on November 30
All the qualifiers for this quadrennial tournament, the first edition of which will take place from June 15 to July 13, 2025 in twelve American stadiums, will be known by then: for the moment only the winner of the Copa Libertadores is missing, whose The 100% Brazilian final will pit Atletico Mineiro against Botafogo on November 30.
Wanted since the end of 2016 by Fifa boss Gianni Infantino, the new competition also faces numerous criticisms as the calendar is already overloaded. The players’ union Fifpro and the Association of World Leagues announced at the end of July their intention to take the matter to the European Commission against Fifa.
The newly minted Ballon d’Or winner, the Spaniard Rodri, for his part judged in September that the footballers were “close” to a strike movement. The current calendar, “in my humble opinion, is too much”, he insisted, even before including the new Club World Cup, in which his team, Manchester City, must participate.
PSG will be the only French team qualified, thanks to its UEFA coefficient over the last four seasons.
From June 15 to July 13
The different hats have not been communicated but we know that Fifa intends to take into account both sporting and geographical criteria. We can therefore assume that only European nations will be able to compete against each other in groups since there are twelve of them.
For other confederations, only one team should be dispatched per group. This will be the case for Asia, Africa and North America (Concacaf) which has four teams, just like South America (Conmebol) with six teams and obviously Oceania, which will only have ‘a representative.
This first 32-team club world will take place in twelve American stadiums from June 15 to July 13, 2025. If the opening match will be played in Miami, Florida, the final will take place in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
