All You Need To Know About The Tournament

FIFA’s newest tournament gets underway in Miami on Saturday night, as Inter Miami and Al Ahly kick off the revamped Club World Cup.

Once famously dubbed a “mistake” by former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, the expanded Club World Cup is Gianni Infantino’s latest gamble to boost his political influence and generate significant revenue.

The real question is whether fan interest will match this ambition.

While a month-long, 32-team showdown might initially sound appealing, the considerable gap in quality between European clubs and their global counterparts could result in a lopsided competition.

As is typical with FIFA, legitimate concerns are often dismissed in the pursuit of “growing the game.”

Thus, the Club World Cup is set to become a regular quadrennial event, mirroring the traditional World Cup cycle.

Here is all you need to know about the tournament.

How many teams take part in the Club World Cup?

There are 32 teams competing at the Club World Cup, representing each of FIFA’s six confederations and split in eight groups of four.

UEFA has the biggest contingent with 12 European teams in the competition, followed by six South American teams from CONMEBOL and five from Concacaf, the North and Central American confederation.

Asia and Africa have four teams each through the AFC and CAF confederations, while the OFC has one sole representative.

Brazil and the USA are the only two nations with more than two teams at the tournament. The former will be represented by Botafogo, Palmeiras, Fluminense and Flamengo, while Inter Miami, Seattle Sounders and Los Angeles FC will fly the Stars and Stripes.

Which teams are in which group at the Club World Cup?

Inter Miami is in Group A with Palmeiras, Portugal’s Porto and Al Ahly from Egypt, while Seattle Sounders joins Botafogo, Atletico Madrid and freshly-crowned European champions Paris Saint-Germain in Group B.

Los Angeles FC, meanwhile, is in Group D along with Chelsea, Flamengo and CAF powerhouse Esperance de Tunis.

Group C includes soccer royalty in the shape of Bayern Munich, Benfica and Boca Juniors, who are joined by Auckland City, the OFC’s only representative.

Inter Milan and River Plate are the headliners in Group E along with Mexican side Monterrey and Japan’s Urawa Red Diamonds, while Group F could throw up some surprises with Borussia Dortmund joined by South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns, South Korea’s Ulsan HD and Brazilian juggernaut Fluminense.

Manchester City and Juventus are the clear favourites in Group G, which also includes Morocco’s Wydad AC and Al Ain from the United Arab Emirates.

Finally, Group H sees 15-time Champions League winners Real Madrid pitted against Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal, Mexican side Pachuca and Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg.

When and where is the Club World Cup?

The tournament gets underway on June 14 when Inter Miami faces Al Hilal at Hard Rock Stadium at 8pm ET.

The group stage ends on June 26, with the Round of 16 starting two days later and running until July 1.

The quarter-finals will be held on July 4 and July 5, with the two semi-finals to take place on July 8 and July 9 and the final on July 13.

The tournament takes place across 11 different US venues in what is effectively a dress rehearsal for next year’s World Cup.

MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, will host both semi-finals and the final.

The other 10 host cities are Nashville, Cincinnati, Orlando, Miami, Washington, D.C., Pasadena, Seattle, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Charlotte.

What is the qualification process for the Club World Cup?

Qualification for the Club World Cup followed two main routes: success in continental competitions and each confederation’s ranking system.

This meant automatic qualification for every winner of the UEFA Champions League, Copa Libertadores, Concacaf Champions Cup, and the equivalent Asian and African tournaments from 2021 to 2024.

Additional spots were then allocated to the highest-ranked teams within each confederation.

A key restriction for European clubs, however, meant that only the two highest-ranked teams per country on the UEFA ranking system could participate.

This rule notably excluded Liverpool, who reached the 2022 Champions League final, and reigning LaLiga champions Barcelona. Similarly, seven-time European Cup winners AC Milan was also left out, a consequence of their historical underperformance in European competitions.

The USA received an extra spot as tournament hosts, meaning their 2024 domestic champions would qualify. So far, so straightforward.

Except that FIFA decide the domestic champions were Inter Miami, who finished with the best regular season record in the MLS, rather than Los Angeles Galaxy, who won the MLS Cup in December.

Inter Miami, of course, happens to be Lionel Messi’s club.

How does the Club World Cup work?

The tournament follows the same format of the FIFA World Cup before it was expanded to 48 teams.

The top two teams in each group qualify for the knockout stages, with each group winner playing a runner-up from another group in the Round of 16.

The winner of Group A plays the runner-up in Group B, and the winner of Group B plays the runner-up in Group A. The same applies to Group C and Group D, Group E and Group F and Group G and Group H.

The eight winners advance to the quarter-finals, where they will face a team on their side of the draw for a place in the last four.

The same applies in the semi-finals, with the two winners reaching the final.

Can clubs from the same confederation play each other?

Clubs from any confederation other than UEFA have been kept apart in the group stages and cannot play each other until the knockout phase.

The same applies to teams from the same country, who have been kept separate in the group phase.

Didn’t the Club World Cup exist already?

Yes, it did. It was introduced in 2000 as the FIFA Club World Championship and it ran parallel to the Intercontinental Cup, which pitted the winner of the Champions League against the winner of the Copa Libertadores.

The two competitions merged in 2005 and the tournament was rebranded as Club World Cup the following year and it’s been contested annually ever since.

The number of teams expanded from seven to 32 this year and under the new format the torunament will be played only once every four years, just like the FIFA World Cup itself.

Manchester City is technically still the reigning champions after beating Fluminense 4-in the final two years ago.

Who is broadcasting the Club World Cup?

DAZN secured the rights to all 63 games by pouring $1bn into FIFA’s coffers and will stream each match live and in multiple languages.

In the USA, selected fixtures will be shown in English on TNT and in Spanish on TUDN, Univision, or UniMas.

FIFA described its deal with DAZN as a “landmark agreement”, a stance echoed by the broadcaster.

“It’s hard to know how big the Club World Cup will be, but we can see from the data already that it’s not going to be small,” DAZN’s chief executive of growth markets, Pete Oliver told The Athletic.

“It’ll be big, it’s just a question of how big.”