The way the World Cup is, the Club World Cup will be like that
Founded in 2000, after more than 2 decades of existence and development, the Club World Cup has always been considered a "surplus product" of FIFA. Every year, the number of participating teams is very small and often only represent the federations. Many clubs in Europe, especially the Champions League champions, only consider the Club World Cup as a short summer trip.
Understanding the development potential and under the pressure of competing with UEFA, FIFA has cherished the new Club World Cup project from 2022. Finally, when the US begins preparing for the 2026 World Cup, the first basic steps will be taken to serve the 2025 Club World Cup.
While the World Cup is still considered the biggest football festival on the planet for national teams, FIFA has turned the Club World Cup into a similar version for 32 clubs from all over the world. Instead of organizing it annually in a "for- have" manner, the Club World Cup will now be held every 4 years, but each time it will be as grand as possible.
FIFA believes that the new version of the Club World Cup will help the federation put the first bricks on the dominance of the club tournaments they organize. It is not surprising that from 2026, there will be a few smaller versions of the Club World Cup, similar to UEFA having EURO and then the Nations League, having the Champions League and then the Europa League, Europa Conference League...
Huge bonuses
At this time last year, there was a scandal between Real Madrid and FIFA about participating in the Club World Cup. The then-called Los Blancos captain - Carlo Ancelotti once hinted that the Spanish team would not participate because the prize for the whole tournament was only one of their friendlies.
After that, Real Madrid had to post on the homepage and "competed" with FIFA to participate. At that time, the scale of the 32-team version was not announced and as Ancelotti said, bonuses could not be attractive enough for rich teams in Europe.
However, since then, no club has complained about bonuses. The World Cup champion earns about 48 million USD/tournament, the Champions League bonus is 98 million USD and the new version of the Club World Cup will bring in 125 million USD for the cup-raising team.
A month of competition in the US with unprecedented bonuses is enough for the strongest clubs like Real Madrid to not consider this a friendly tournament.
In addition, the amount of 125 million USD is an attractive bonus for other strong teams such as PSG, Atletico Madrid or Manchester City to fight at all costs.
The intersection of stars, top clubs
Lionel Messi when moving to Inter Miami may not believe that he will ever meet European teams again in an official tournament. Right from the group stage, M10 will face FC Porto. If he goes deeper, he can face Mbappe (Real Madrid), Harry Kane ( Bayern Munich), Dembele (PSG) or Griezmann (Atletico)...
These will be competitions with a strong European classic flavor, but on the land of the stars and stripes. The star who was once the owner of the old continent like Messi will meet great rivals in the past. Both valuable in terms of confrontation and bringing classic nostalgia, that is the value of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025.
For football fans, it will be difficult to see the big match between Real Madrid and Al Hilal firsthand. One team is the king of Europe, the other team is the strongest force in the Saudi Pro League. The two schools, both flashy and cash-in-bank, will meet, determining from the group stage how far the gap between European and Asian football is.
American fans and the whole world will witness a real festival because of the strange things, the anticipation of the scale brought by the FIFA Club World Cup. This summer, without the World Cup or EURO, the Club World Cup will be a very valuable spiritual dish.
The FIFA Club World Cup 2025 will be broadcast in full on the FPT Television system in Vietnam with the opening match between Inter Miami and Al Ahly at 7:00 a.m. on June 15.
