Players already knackered – and Fifa’s crazy Club World Cup plan will make it worse

Fifa president Gianni Infantino is behind the new Club World Cup competition, which will run from June 15 to July 13 next year - Getty Images/Yasser Bakhsh

The 32-team, one-month summer extravaganza that is the new Fifa Club World Cup is less than one year away, although this seismic change to the football calendar is still without some of the key elements one might regard as key to successful tournaments.

While Fifa’s great rival for the world’s broadcast billions, Uefa, hosts the Euros in Germany, Fifa is still yet to secure a television deal that will form the basis of the prize money. Carlo Ancelotti, the Real Madrid manager, has already cast doubt on whether Fifa and its president Gianni Infantino can come up with the kind of numbers that the biggest club in the world can draw for a simple friendly. Bloomberg News has reported that a proposed deal with Apple TV has fallen through.

Less than one year out from the putative start date on June 15, 2025, the host cities in the United States have not yet been announced. Indeed, Fifa will not even say how many there will be. There is no official tender for television rights on the Fifa website as is the convention, and no official word as to how that strategy will be handled. Apple TV has a global deal with Major League Soccer – which has prompted suggestions Fifa might have been planning a similar approach for its own competition.

There has been no one-year-to-go announcement of any kind from Fifa for its new tournament. The world governing body is saying nothing other than referencing the anticipation of a few clubs who have previewed their own involvement on social media. The likes of Seattle Sounders, from Major League Soccer; Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa; and Ulsan HD from South Korea all appear to be thrilled. Atletico Madrid have taken the opportunity, one year out, to give their US soccer schools a boost.

Manchester City lifted the Club World Cup in 2023, before Fifa brought in changes to the competition - Getty Images/Tullio Puglia

Yet the big question remains: how much does football want the new one-month Fifa Club World Cup? And pertinently for Fifa, how much do those pay-TV and streaming platform executives want to pay for it?

The competition is Infantino’s big strategy to capture part of the club broadcast rights market currently dominated at the top by Uefa’s Champions League, and its two attendant men’s competitions, and the mighty Premier League. Uefa’s most recent budget forecasts annual revenue of €5.2 billion per year. Fifa, which has just the men’s World Cup as a profitable concern, has a forecast of €10.2 billion for 2023 to 2026, €3.4 billion per year.

The proposal for the new tournament has been disruptive to say the least. It was first discussed at a Fifa Council meeting in 2018 and predates the Uefa tumult over the remodelling of the Champions League and the 2021 European Super League breakaway. Six years ago, Infantino was said to have £25 billion in backing from Softbank, the Saudi Arabia-backed Japanese bank, for the first four editions of its new tournament. It may yet secure Saudi investment but for a project so long in the making it feels decidedly last minute in execution.

Many of the world’s leading clubs, including Real, Chelsea, Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Paris St-Germain are already confirmed to be playing in the tournament that runs for four weeks to the final on July 13 next year. The clunky qualification criteria means that Arsenal and Liverpool – more serious recent challengers to City’s recent Premier League dominance – are absent. Chelsea, under their new US ownership, are understood to be excited at their involvement. Unsurprising given they are currently not in the Champions League. Others have been more circumspect.

After Ancelotti went public wondering if the numbers added up for Real, the club felt obliged to issue a statement that “at no time has there been any question” that they would not participate. But what indeed are Real and all the others playing for? The Mundial de Clubes Fifa – to give its full name – means different things to different people. But no one could seriously make the argument that, for a European club, the Mundial is worth more than the Champions League. Does it even register as a major honour?

Players need rest, not more games or new trophies

That is the question that broadcasters will be asking as they plan their budgets. As next season gets under way it will be the same for some of the biggest stars of the Premier League when they look at their schedules. Kyle Walker, for one, has played 103 games and counting for club and country inside the last 24 months, going back to the Community Shield of July 2022. In that time he has won six trophies, including a Fifa Club World Cup in the old format, in Saudi, and a Uefa Super Cup. He will play at least two more games this season, perhaps five.

What Walker needs is not more games or new trophies to win – what he and others need is a rest. Fifa says that in terms of extra games its new competition adds 85 over a four-year cycle, 21 per year, spread around 40 teams globally. Put like that it sounds less than onerous but many of those players will be the already overplayed stars of Europe. And all who participate will lose that crucial summer break in alternate years between international tournaments.

As for the African Cup of Nations, next year’s edition in Morocco has been delayed six months so as not to clash with the new Fifa Club World Cup and will now be played in December and January.

The legal action threatened against the Fifa Club World Cup by domestic leagues, including the Premier League, shows that this has the potential to be even more serious. The Premier League’s stance is unlikely to cut much ice with City, with whom they are locked in a forever war over the 100-plus charges. Yet it is just another layer in the challenge for Fifa, who have opposition from players’ unions, including the Professional Footballers’ Association, over player welfare.

Fifa has declined to comment on scheduling, broadcast deals – including the reported negotiations with Apple TV – and host cities.

As ever in football, what will likely soothe troubled minds is a nice big payday. The pressure is on for Infantino to deliver. No wonder he is keen to fast-track the 2034 World Cup finals host decision, which is heading inexorably in Saudi’s favour. In the meantime this competition is looming on the horizon, to be held somewhere in the US yet to be confirmed, for a prize money pot yet to be decided, beamed to you live by broadcasters yet to be announced.

Sign up to the Front Page newsletter for free: Your essential guide to the day's agenda from The Telegraph - direct to your inbox seven days a week.