The reporter reported coldlyOn December 18, FIFA announced the 2025 Club World Cup schedule and some teams that have won the right to participate. Originally, it was thought that FIFA would cut more of the "cake" from the club competition, which expanded the seven-team version of the Club World Cup to 32 teams. The club version of the "World Cup", which is held once every four years, competes with UEFA's Champions League. But with the release of this "new bottle of old wine" Intercontinental Cup, people realized that FIFA's ambition is not only to cut the cake of club events, but to complete the layout of the whole event from the national team to the club - in the real sense, eating "everyone's pot" and not forgetting "their own bowl".
The 32-team Club World Cup, which starts in 2025, has almost become a veritable FIFA Club World Cup!The FIFA Intercontinental Cup, which will be launched in the winter of 2024, is the only way to inherit the previous Club World Cup and continue to retain the market share of the championship of the continental club competition. With the continuation of the Club World Cup, FIFA has created a map of all ages and series of national teams and club competitions, and only the Confederations Cup of the national team "Intercontinental Cup" is missing. In the future, at the right time, FIFA will "resurrect" the Confederations Cup in the same way as the Club World Cup.
The new FIFA Intercontinental Cup comes as the European and South American football confederations (CONMEBOL) openly formed an alliance with FIFA last year. The two major football confederations have set up a joint office in London, and in 2023 they will first resume the "European and American Championships" that have been suspended for 19 years, with the European Cup winners playing the Copa America winners. The tournament is the national team's version of the "Intercontinental Cup", which has been repackaged from that year's Frankie Cup to a new finalissima (Italian for "big final"). The women's European Cup and the Copa America champion were added to complete the full coverage of the men's and women's main events. The two confederations also plan to revive the traditional Intercontinental Cup, with the Champions League winners versus the Copa Libertadores, also covering men's and women's football competitions, and competing with FIFA for the right to organise continental competitions and market share.
After the traditional seven-team Club World Cup was held in Saudi Arabia at the end of this year, it was supposed to be discontinued next year, like the Confederations Cup, and the 32-team Club World Cup to be held in the United States in the summer of 2025. But FIFA was reluctant to let go of the 23-year operation and successfully replaced the Intercontinental Cup in 2005 with the Club World Cup. It is impossible to hand over the organization and market share of the club's intercontinental championship to others. Just as FIFA gave the Arab Cup an official status before the 2022 Qatar World Cup, replacing the Confederations Cup as a test match for the World Cup, FIFA also made the Intercontinental Cup official, and the FIFA Intercontinental Cup inherited the traditional FIFA Club World Cup.
The new FIFA Intercontinental Cup has been fine-tuned compared to the previous Club World Cup, first of all, the right to participate in the championship of the host country league has been cancelled, and only the champion teams of the six continental club competitions will participate. Secondly, in order to gain the support of the European giants, the Champions League winners will go directly to the final, instead of playing one more semi-final as they do now. The other five continental champions go through three rounds of elimination, and the winner qualifies for the Champions League winners. It seems that because there is no host champion to participate, the Champions League champion, which is already the most popular and commercially valuable, will lose a lot of commercial benefits, but keeping the "king of kings" in the club competition field and suppressing the "European and American championships" itself is what FIFA values most.
Moreover, the new version of the FIFA Intercontinental Cup is held once a year, and the small scale of the event is more conducive to the development of the Middle East, North America and Far East markets. The gradual compression, or even the complete demise of the European and South American Football Confederations, is the fundamental reason why FIFA has set up the cauldron of the "Club World Cup" and has not forgotten to protect the bowl of meat of the Club World Cup.
With the launch of the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, FIFA has two major tournaments, the National Team and Club World Cups, as well as an annual Club Intercontinental Cup, in a four-year cycle. In addition to setting aside one year for each continent to compete in its own national team, there is also a one-year gap in the four-year cycle waiting for FIFA to fill. Since there was a 32-team version of the club World Cup test match one year before the World Cup year, the national team "Intercontinental Cup" one year after the World Cup year is about to come out.
UEFA has promoted the expansion of the three levels of club competitions in Europe, led by the European Championship and the Champions League, and FIFA has responded with a significant expansion of the National Team World Cup and the Club World Cup. UEFA resurrected the European and American Championships, and FIFA's response began with a new packaging, continuing to hold the traditional Club World Cup, and fighting back against the alliance between UEFA and INABOL.
The world football industry is getting bigger and bigger, and Infantino's ambition is as good as that of his predecessor Blatter.