Carlo Ancelotti was very clear. This Monday, the Italian coach of Real Madrid announced that the winner of the last Champions League would not participate in the 2025 Club World Cup (from June 15 to July 13). The new format is supposed to bring together 32 teams.
“FIFA forgets it, the players and clubs will not participate in this tournament,” declared Carlo Ancelotti in the columns of the Italian newspaper ll Giornale. A single Real Madrid match is worth 20 million and FIFA wants to give us this amount for the entire cup. Negative. Like us, other clubs will reject the invitation. »
A new, more ambitious formula
FIFA hopes to give a whole new dimension to the Club World Cup, a competition that has been little attended until now. Among the 32 teams invited for the 2025 edition are the winners of the last four Champions League (Chelsea, Real Madrid and Manchester City). But also other European clubs based on a ranking established from the past four seasons (Salzburg, PSG, Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Juventus Turin, FC Porto, Benfica Lisbon and Atlético de Madrid).
If, as Carlo Ancelotti claims, clubs like Real Madrid refused to take part in the competition, it would be a snub for FIFA. The body wishes to make this meeting an equivalent of the World Cup of selections.
