Fifa announced on Wednesday a first partner for its Club World Cup, expanded next year to 32 teams, the Chinese television and electronics group Hisense, and hopes for others “in the coming weeks”, according to a press release.
This agreement, the financial terms of which have not been revealed, “will offer supporters unique ways to get involved in the tournament, both on and off the field”, the head of the body promised in Shanghai world footballer, Italian-Swiss Gianni Infantino.
Already a sponsor since 2017 of the Men’s World Cup, a competition from which Fifa derives most of its revenue and its redistribution capacity, Hisense alleviates a small part of the uncertainty over the economic model of the future Club World Cup.
Wanted since the end of 2016 by Gianni Infantino, who dreams of seeing Fifa develop in the potentially lucrative segment of club football, this expanded tournament has encountered so much reluctance that it will not begin until 2025 in the United States. .
A first project increasing from 7 to 24 teams, announced in 2019 to compete in China, failed in the face of opposition from the powerful European Club Association and Fifa finally announced the expansion to 32 clubs in December 2022, in the wake of the Qatari World Cup.
The quadrennial tournament, the draw for which will take place on December 9, is scheduled to be held from June 15 to July 13, 2025 in the United States, in 12 stadiums, a year before the country co-hosts the Men’s World Cup with Canada and the Mexico.
If the revenues and the benefits for the clubs remain a mystery, the competition also faces numerous criticisms as the calendar is already overloaded. The players’ union Fifpro and the Association of World Leagues announced at the end of July their intention to take the matter to the European Commission against Fifa.
The newly minted Ballon d’Or winner, the Spaniard Rodri, for his part judged in September that the footballers were “close” to a strike movement. The current calendar, “in my humble opinion, is too much”, he insisted, even before including the new Club World Cup, in which his Manchester City team must participate.
The African continent will be represented in this World Cup by Wydad of Casablanca, Esperance of Tunis, National of Cairo and Mamelodi Sundowns.
