The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup in the USA will be the first of its kind, featuring 32 teams. From this year on, it will take place every four years.
FIFA have been toying with the idea of a Club World Cup for decades now. First, it was unofficial, in the form of a final between the winners of the season’s UEFA European Cup (which later became the Champions League) and the South American CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores.
The match became known as the Intercontinental Cup.
How Did It Work?
The first official, global tournament was an eight-team competition in 2000 in Brazil, which included the six continental champions of the previous season, along with the reigning titleholders of the Intercontinental Cup, and a host team.
The sides were divided into two groups of four, while the winners of each group then contested the final, and the runners-up of the sections played each other in the third-place playoff match.
After that original tournament, it took the world governing body of football five years to organise a similar event again.
They changed the format to only include the six continental winners while making it an uneven knockout competition with the champions of Europe and South America, each getting a bye into the semifinals.
It was therefore simply an extension of the old Intercontinental Cup, as continental champions from the other four continents were given the opportunity to try to prevent the traditional Europe vs South America final.
Disadvantages of the Early Format
From 2005 until 2023, that became an annual event, usually at the end of each calendar year.
This format of the Club World Cup was deemed unfair, as not all teams started in the same round. There was also a gap in quality between the UEFA Champions League winners and everyone else.
There was another gap between the quality of the Oceanian representative to the tournament, the by far weakest side, and the rest of the field.
In order to make up for the fact that the Oceanian champions were either a semi-professional or sometimes even a fully amateur side, and to make hosting the annual event more lucrative, FIFA slightly changed the format by 2007.
From then on, the national champion of the host country’s league would open the tournament by taking on the side from Oceania for a place in the quarterfinal, where the winner would face either the champions of Africa, Asia, or CONCACAF.
This did not change the skewed nature of the Club World Cup, nor did it do anything to raise its profile.
The tournament was a sideshow, almost always won by the lone European representative (though the first three winners were actually Brazilian).
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The 2025 Club World Cup Expansion
For these reasons, and of course to generate more revenue for FIFA, football’s world governing body decided to expand the tournament to 32 teams, and have it be played every four years, as well as in the summer, rather than the winter.
The advantage of this is that it is a true World Cup tournament for clubs, with teams from other continents otherwise not playing competitive matches against each other.
Also, in this case, the tournament will be used as a dry run for some of the stadiums and cities hosting the 2026 national team World Cup, where FIFA will be able to make adjustments to some things, such as ticket prices if needed.
The negative aspects include the fact that players will not that enough rest after a long and difficult season. Another disadvantage is the strange way the qualified teams were selected.
From Europe, there were 12 teams, including the UEFA Champions League winners from 2021 to 2024 alongside the teams with the highest UEFA club ranking at that time, but there is a catch: only two clubs per national league can qualify this way.
Meaning that in the case of the EPL, for example, Chelsea and Manchester City had to qualify, because they won the 2021 and 2023 Champions League titles, respectively. But sides like Liverpool and Arsenal were not eligible.
Likewise, La Liga was limited to two sports, namely Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid (which qualified through the ranking), while leaving out Barcelona.
Meanwhile, to get to 12 European teams, FIFA gave sides like FC Porto and Red Bull Salzburg a place in the Club World Cup instead.
In general, European fans won’t care much about the tournament anyway, but for American fans of European teams, especially (of which there are many in the States), this Club World Cup could be the event of a lifetime.
Main Photo
Credit: IMAGO / Sven Simon
Recording Date: 10.06.2025