Why is FIFA Club World Cup 2025 deemed controversial?

The tournament will witness 32 teams playing.

The FIFA Club World Cup 2025 has expanded as a result of FIFA’s most recent effort to create a more significant international club football competition. The first iteration of the updated competition is scheduled for the summer of 2025 from 14 June to 13 July.

From an annual seven-club tournament to a 32-team super event every four years in the summer before the World Cup, the FIFA Club World Cup will now be hosted ahead of each cycle’s World Cup.

As a result, the inaugural competition will take place in the United States one year prior to the 2026 World Cup.

Massive clubs from all over the world will compete in the eagerly awaited event. But the recently formed tournament has drawn a lot of criticism.

Why is the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 controversial?

Critics have pointed out a few issues with the FIFA Club World Cup 2025. The increased workload on the already overburdened football schedule has been the focus of many of the concerns expressed, but other issues have also been noted.

The FIFA Club World Cup 2025’s largest and most outspoken detractors have called out the month-long competition as a flagrant violation of the already troublesome schedule for international football teams and competitions.

Before the reorganisation of the new Club World Cup, players’ workloads and fixture congestion were major concerns in football worldwide.

Global football player union FIFPRO has been vocal about the issue, releasing a comprehensive report in 2023 about the “unbalanced match calendar.” Even a September 2024 story by Jonathan Liew of The Guardian referred to the football calendar as “broken.”

A top-level professional football player’s only time off is during the summer, since a complete club football season already takes up to ten of the twelve months in a year.

National team events, which frequently take place in the summer to prevent conflicts with the club schedule, further reduce that time for individuals who play internationally.

Club World Cup 2025 labelled as a profit-earning tournament

American journalist Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports called the tournament:

“FIFA’s attempt to monetize soccer’s biggest clubs and players” before noting that “critics argue it’s a ‘cash grab’; part of a personal battle between Gianni Infantino and UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, and a ploy to reinforce Infantino’s political power.”

The restructured Club World Cup, according to Kevin De Bruyne, shows:

“that money speaks louder than the players’ voices.”

“We know there will be only three weeks between the Club World Cup final and the first Premier League match,”

De Bruyne said, highlighting the aforementioned fixture congestion issue:

“So, we have three weeks to rest and prepare for another 80 matches.”

Will it benefit FIFA or participating clubs financially?

The governing body’s audacious goal that the competition will bring participating clubs enormous wealth to expand the game internationally has not materialised, supporting the claim that the FIFA Club World Cup 2025’s primary goal is to enrich FIFA.

FIFA made an effort to assert, through a variety of stories rather than open boasting, that each side competing in the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 will earn €50 million.

FIFA had claimed to have made an estimated €4 billion in profit to disperse, but Marca says they will now only make half of that amount.

As a result, while the competition winner can anticipate receiving over €120 million, participating clubs that withdraw early will often receive far smaller sums. Furthermore, they will most likely not be split equally.

The 12 European clubs are expected to keep about 70% of the money that is distributed among the clubs in the end, with the other 22 participants splitting the remaining 30%. The rich will get richer once more.

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