June 13 – On Saturday, host club Inter Miami kick off the controversial 32-team Club World Cup against Al Ahly of Egypt. The build-up to the tournament has been marred by controversy, ranging from sporting integrity and low ticket sales to a lack of broadcast deals and disinterest from the major clubs.
At least Europe’s elite sides are on board now after FIFA announced a prize pot of $1 billion with the winner taking home as much as $125 million.
The distribution of the prize money has also been skewed to favour European participants with Auckland FC, the only amateur club in the competition, taking home as little as $3.5 million while Europe’s 12 representatives will earn as much as $38.19 million in the group stages.
The Guardian newspaper reported that a 48-team Club World Cup could be considered in the future, as some of Europe’s biggest clubs now want to find a way of inclusion in the competition that offers little in the way of truly global competitive integrity but has bought its way to their attention.
Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and FC Barcelona are all missing from the tournament. All of these clubs would have needed to find a way around the two-clubs per country cap which inevitably means the Club World Cup can never live up to its claim of crowning a true club world champion – the claim FIFA has made endlessly and which only they seem to believe.
Some European stakeholders have now raised fears that such is the authoritarian rule of FIFA the tournament could even become a biennial fixture in the already dangerously congested match calendar – this was one of the original proposals for the summer tournament.
Fifpro launched a complaint against FIFA with the European Commission over the match congestion. The tournament is seen as landgrab by FIFA for political and financial reasons as it looks to eat some of UEFA’s commercial lunch and seeks to find relevance in the club game that underpins professional football across the world.
Yet all the talk of what happens after this summer is premature. FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafstrom has admitted as much. Senior voices within the federation and confederation world had warned FIFA that it hadn’t fully thought through the tournament but FIFA didn’t listen and it is now paying the consequences.
Ticket sales have been very slow (even before news that US Immigration and Customs agents would be operating at matches), even forcing FIFA to lower prices in a last minute bid to get fans in.
The opening game in Miami had had sold less than 50% of the stadium capacity yesterday (Thursday) and FIFA had even launched a five for one ticket offer priced at $3.50 for all five tickets for students.
Many ticket buyers for PSG vs Atletico Madrid fixture at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday have had their tickets cancelled en route to being re-allocated to a more television friendly seat in the stadium – reports are than less than 5,000 tickets for the 90,000 stadium had been sold.
From the outset, ticket prices had not been democratic, with the cheapest ticket for the final at MetLife Stadium costing more than $600. You can now buy a ticket in Orlando’s Interco Stadium for less than $10.
The lack of fan interest was also reflected by broadcasters who universally shied away from buying the TV rights in the first sales attempt. Eventually DAZN stumped up $1 billion for exclusive worldwide rights for two editions of the competition, backed by money from SURJ, an arm of Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund who had bought a timely $1 billion stake in the streaming service.
Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, also became a partner of the tournament.
But perhaps, the tournament also offers a glimpse of the future: a competition with just about enough stars on a major streaming platform with Europe’s elite clubs at the heart of it. Come the final on July 13, the tournament will have succeeded or flopped, but, either way, FIFA want it to stay.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1749888013labto1749888013ofdlr1749888013owedi1749888013sni@i1749888013tnuk.1749888013ardni1749888013mas1749888013