The 2025 Club World Cup will be hosted by the United States. This was decided on Friday during a meeting of FIFA, the world football association. The global final tournament for clubs – in which 32 participants participate for the first time – is seen as the ideal dress rehearsal for the World Cup that takes place a year later. The US organizes this together with Mexico and Canada.
At the end of last year, FIFA president Gianni Infantino already revealed the plans of the world football association to have 32 clubs participate in the World Cup for club teams. Seven teams currently participate: the winners of the Champions League, the Copa Libertadores, the African Champions League, the CONCACAF, the Asian Champions League, the OFC (Oceania) Champions League and the national champion of the host country.
“In the United States, we see the ideal host to be the first to give shape to this tournament in its new format,” Infantino explains the host country’s allocation. “The infrastructure is good and the interest from the fans is huge. We really expect a great success.” The world football association recently indicated that the winners of the continental tournaments between 2021 and 2024 will receive a ticket for the World Cup for club teams in 2025 anyway. Chelsea (2021), Real Madrid (2022) and Manchester City (2023) are therefore already qualified for the tournament.
The last club outside Europe to win the Club World Cup was Brazil’s Corinthians, who beat Chelsea 1-0 in the 2012 final. Since then, the cup has gone to the winner of the Champions League every year. Morocco hosted the tournament in 2013 and 2014, Japan in the following two years and the United Arab Emirates in 2017, 2018 and 2021. Qatar hosted the tournament in 2019 and 2020. The final between Real Madrid and Al-Hilal (5 -3) of this season was played in Morocco. The Royal is also the club that won the tournament the most times: five times.
1 comments