By Victor Kanayo
FIFA President, Gianni Infantino has said the world football body will launch a new 32-team men’s Club World Cup from 2025.
Infantino also revealed that the planned 2026 World Cup group stage format will discussed.
Infantino revealed this in a press conference ahead of the Argentina vs France final on Sunday December 18, 2022.
He said: ‘It will be a Club World Cup of 32 teams, every four years, and the first edition will be summer of 2025. They will be the best teams in the world invited to participate.”
The new Club World Cup concept was initially meant to launch in China in 2021 with 24 teams but was cancelled due to the pandemic – and is now set for a further expansion from June 2025.
Meanwhile, the current World Cup format, in place since 1998 which sees 32 teams drawn into eight groups of four, is also set to change at the expanded 48-team tournament in four years’ time with the FIFA Council choosing in 2017 for the nations to be split into 16 groups of three.
However, after the dramatic finale to the group stages in Qatar, Infantino, speaking at a press conference for the first time since his controversial speech on the eve of the tournament, revealed the group stage format could yet change.
Europe’s top clubs have yet to see any formal proposals for the 32-team Club World Cup which FIFA intend to launch in 2025.
And Infantino did not offer any further details about the rebooted Club World Cup other than claiming it will feature eight more teams than the 24-team version that was cancelled in 2021.
FIFA have made similar announcements before in each of the last three years, without disclosing any details or addressing the issue that such a competition would be dominated by European clubs.
The current competition features just seven clubs and is made up of the winners of each confederation’s premier division, including the Champions League winners.
FIFA want to hold an expanded Club World Cup every four years in place of the existing annual event, which attracts little interest outside South America.
Chelsea won last year’s current format of the Club World Cup as reigning Champions League winners, beating Copa Libertadores champions Palmeiras in February.
