{"id":159645,"date":"2022-12-16T15:26:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T15:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/gianni-infantino-announces-32-team-mens-club-world-cup-in-2025-club-world-cup\/"},"modified":"2022-12-16T15:26:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-16T15:26:00","slug":"gianni-infantino-announces-32-team-mens-club-world-cup-in-2025-club-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/gianni-infantino-announces-32-team-mens-club-world-cup-in-2025-club-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Gianni Infantino announces 32-team men’s Club World Cup in 2025 | Club World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gianni Infantino has risked a major row with Europe’s leading federations by announcing that Fifa will launch a 32-team men’s Club World Cup in 2025.<\/p>\n

In what amounts to an ambush to the Premier League and its counterparts, Infantino confirmed the drastic expansion of a tournament whose current annual iteration sees seven teams compete. His revelation was made even though no agreements have been made with the relevant domestic leagues.<\/p>\n

The revamped event will, as trailed by Infantino, take place every four years. It is understood that no formal proposals have been shown to the Premier League, whose stance was set in November 2021 and remains unchanged. Back then the league’s chief executive, Richard Masters, said it was \u201ccommitted to preventing any radical changes to the post-2024 Fifa international match calendar that would adversely affect player welfare and threaten the competitiveness, calendar, structures and traditions of domestic football.\u201d<\/p>\n

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There is no indication at this stage about the likely venue for a tournament that will require significant financial backing. An expanded Club World Cup has long been a hobby horse of Infantino’s. In 2018 he proposed a new 24-team event that was looked on dimly by Uefa; it was slated to take place in China last year but was put on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Barrelling on with a plan for an even bigger event will raise eyebrows across Europe and sets some of the sport’s key stakeholders on collision course. It is inconceivable Infantino’s plan would not involve a bulk of European teams. He also confirmed a new women’s Club World Cup is being planned.<\/p>\n

It was the Fifa president’s most eyecatching statement in a press conference, staged in the runup to Sunday’s World Cup final in Doha, that otherwise focused on proclamations of triumph before substantive issues. Infantino revealed this winter’s tournament had brought in $7.5bn in revenues, $1bn more than budgeted, and boasted of its \u201cunique cohesive power\u201d. He offered little engagement to questions about the off-pitch issues that have clouded Qatar 2022 throughout, saying Fifa is \u201cdefending human rights\u201d and suggesting figures around the deaths of migration workers connected with the tournament have not been wielded accurately.<\/p>\n

Infantino also announced that a new \u201cFifa World Series\u201d of friendly tournaments, designed to pit teams from different continents against each other more frequently, would take place in even years across the March international break. Again the proposal was light on detail and there will be further concerns about added impact on scheduling and players’ travel time.<\/p>\n

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