Club World Cup 2025: What is it, why is it, who’s in it, should we care, and where can we watch on TV?
We keep hearing people saying there is no major tournament this summer. One of the reasons we keep hearing it is because very often it is us saying it.
Wrong. So wrong. There is a major tournament this summer whether we like it or not. There’s the 2025 Club World Cup, taking place in the United States in June and July.
But what exactly is the 2025 Club World Cup? Who are its friends? And to what social class does it belong?
You’ve got a lot of questions, mister. Luckily we’re here with quite literally some of the answers.
What is the Club World Cup?
Club World Cup? Yeah, we know what that is – isn’t it just that short tournament in the middle of the season where the European champions skip off for a week to beat an Asian team and a South American team and call themselves world champions while nobody else pays any attention?
No, that’s the old Club World Cup you’re thinking of. That was generally exactly how it worked, though; a short, eight-team tournament in which the European and South American teams received byes straight to the semi-finals, which they would generally win to reach a final, which would then nearly always be won by the European team.
It was really an expansion of the old Intercontinental Cup which cut out the middleman and just went straight to a UEFA v CONMEBOL one-off final.
This is not that. This is a full-scale player-exhausting 32-team summer tournament that will surely decide once and for all the greatest club side on earth.
Wait, how many teams are in the Club World Cup?
Yep. This is absolutely nothing like the previous Club World Cups – not even the 2000 attempt at a ‘proper’ tournament that nearly caused the end of the whole idea and for which Manchester United skipped that season’s FA Cup to go out in the group stage after beating only South Melbourne.
This is 32 teams in eight groups with knockouts from the last 16. You know, like the World Cup before they ruined it.
Surely that’s a terrible idea given the long-standing concerns about player welfare and the sheer number of matches they play now?
You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no, turns out that’s fine. Players’ unions and various other bodies have quietly suggested it might not actually be fine, though. But it definitely is fine. Please stop asking whether it’s fine.
So why is this extended Club World Cup happening?
Money, obviously. FIFA have been noodling around with the idea of a Proper Club World Cup forever, and really started the ball rolling back in 2016. One obvious reason for more recent urgency is the fact FIFA sees this competition as a potential way to stave off the threat of any breakaway Super Leagues and such.
The original plan was for the first expanded tournament to take place in 2021, but that was just one of the many, many things scuppered by Covid. So here we are, four years later, at last ready to go again.
Who are the 32 teams in the Club World Cup? And how did they qualify?
Now you’re asking the right questions. Asia, Africa and CONCACAF all have four slots, South America has six, Oceania has one, and UEFA has 12, with one spot reserved for the champions of the host nation, in this case the United States and also in this case quite controversial.
For Africa, Asia and CONCACAF the four spots go to the four continental champions between 2021 and 2024. In the event of a team winning more than one, rankings were devised to select the next best entrant(s) to fill the quota.
For Oceania, the top-ranked of their four champions across the time period gets in.
For CONMEBOL it’s the four Copa Libertadores winners and then the top two non-winners from the rankings.
And in Europe it’s the Champions League winners from that period with the remaining slots dished out to the best ranked non-winners on UEFA’s club co-efficient. One extra wrinkle here is that no more than two teams from the same country would be let in, unless they were all actual Champions League winners.
So England have Chelsea (2021 Champions League winners) and Man City (2023 winners) involved which meant no room for your Liverpools or Arsenals or Man Uniteds to try and get in on ranking points alone.
Real Madrid winning two of the relevant Champions Leagues left nine spots to fill on the rankings. With the ‘two per country’ rule they were swiftly filled by obvious teams from Germany (Bayern, Dortmund), Italy (Inter, Juventus), Portugal (Porto, Benfica), Spain (Atletico Madrid) and France (PSG) leaving one rogue spot that ended up going the way of Red Bull Salzburg. Love that for them.
As well as the English big guns it leaves Barcelona as the most conspicuous absentees. It also now occurs to us that FIFA will be pretty pleased the Champions League final just before this tournament will feature Inter and PSG (who are both in this tournament) rather than Arsenal and Barcelona (who are not).
So who are the actual Club World Cup teams?
We’re getting there. We can do this in groups as well now, because the draw happened last year which we definitely all remember.
Group A:
Palmeiras (Brazil)
Porto (Portugal)
Al Ahly (Egypt)
Inter Miami (USA)
Group B:
PSG (France)
Atletico Madrid (Spain)
Botafogo (Brazil)
Seattle Sounders (USA)
Group C:
Bayern Munich (Germany)
Auckland City (New Zealand)
Boca Juniors (Argentina)
Benfica (Portugal)
Group D:
Flamengo (Brazil)
Esperance de Tunis (Tunisia)
Chelsea (England)
Los Angeles FC (USA) or Club America (Mexico)
Group E:
River Plate (Argentina)
Urawa Red Diamonds (Japan)
Monterrey (Mexico)
Inter (Italy)
Group F:
Fluminense (Brazil)
Borussia Dortmund (Germany)
Ulsan HD (Korea)
Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa)
Group G:
Manchester City (England)
Wydad FC (Morocco)
Al Ain (UAE)
Juventus (Italy)
Group H:
Real Madrid (Spain)
Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia)
Pachuca (Mexico)
Red Bull Salzburg (Austria)
Why is there an ‘or’ in Chelsea’s group?
Because Leon qualified for the tournament by winning the 2023 CONCACAF Champions League but have been deemed ineligible for this event after falling foul of rules on multi-club ownership – they have the same owners as fellow qualifiers Pachuca.
So a couple of weeks before the tournament there’s a play-off between Los Angeles FC (runners-up in 2023) and Club America (current top-ranked CONCACAF non-qualifier) to decide the final place in the 32-team line-up.
When and where is the Club World Cup happening?
The play-off match is on May 31 in LA, with the tournament proper getting under way on June 14 in Miami as Lionel Messi and the lads take on Al Ahly, with the final 63 games and one month later on July 13 in New York. In all, the 63 matches will be spread across 12 stadiums in 11 US cities.
Chelsea’s three group matches take place on June 16, 20 and 24, with Man City in action on June 18, 22, and 26. If they both win their groups they will be on opposite sides of the knockout bracket.
Didn’t you say something about the host spot being controversial about four hours ago?
We did. Well remembered. The host spot is reserved for the ‘national champions’ of the host nation, which seems broadly fine. The controversy is that MLS has more than one way of defining that; is it the team that wins the league phase of the season or triumphs after the play-offs?
The very established way with US sports is clearly that the team that wins the play-off events is considered the overall champion rather than the team who had the best record in league play.
But that’s not how FIFA have done it. Inter Miami won the Supporters’ Shield for topping the regular season MLS table but came a cropper in the play-offs.
After (which feels important) Inter Miami won the Supporters’ Shield, FIFA announced they would receive the host spot rather than whoever would go on to win the overall title after the play-offs. The suspect timing of the announcement and the sponsor-pleasing boost of securing as it did a place in the tournament for Lionel Messi is of course a complete coincidence.
So should we actually care about the Club World Cup?
There’s the question. The old Intercontinental Cups and Club World Cup have always had differing receptions. To generalise, they were seen as a bigger deal by South America and everyone else than by Europe, where winning the Champions League remains very much the blue riband achievement for a club side.
In time, it’s very possible that this more fully fledged tournament, one that isn’t effectively a one-off match in the middle of the season in Qatar or Saudi Arabia or Japan or wherever else happens to be financially expedient to FIFA at the time, does come to be considered the bigger event to win.
FIFA certainly want that to be the case, and you can be sure they will throw everything they can at ensuring that’s what happens, including a massive prize pot.
With £775m being divvied out among the competitors – £97m of it to the eventual winners – you can be sure the clubs involved definitely give a sh*t.
Whatever the flaws of the idea, timing and execution, there is a very strong argument the winner of this more fleshed-out tournament feel like they will have a stronger – and perhaps even first truly legitimate – claim on the ‘world champions’ title than any winners of its predecessors.
Guess we’d best tune in then, nothing better to do in the summer is there. Where can we watch the Club World Cup on TV?
The global TV rights were won by DAZN in a reported $1bn deal which, in a further example of just how much serendipity exists in the jolly and above-board world of football, came just after they received a significant cash injection from Saudi backers and just before Saudi Arabia were awarded the World Cup.
It’s just so lovely when a plan comes together like that, isn’t it? Good things happening to good people.
Anyway. DAZN will be making the games available free-to-air on their app and other platforms – itself a sign of how keen FIFA are to get eyeballs on this thing. And 23 of the 63 games will also be available in the UK on Channel 5 in a lovely throwback to Europas past after they signed a sub-licensing deal with DAZN.
Not all those games are going to be Thursday nights, either. They’ll get the final, half the other knockout games (one semi, two quarters, four last-16s) as well as 15 group games. No confirmed details on those games yet, but we’re guessing City and Chelsea will feature prominently for as long as they’re around.
Finally and most importantly, does the Club World Cup have an official song?
You’d better believe it has an official song and you’d better believe it’s terrace favourite Freed From Desire by Gala.
