Mexico's Club America forward Oribe Peralta (C) is challenged by China's Guangzhou defender Zou ... [+]
FIFA has announced that the first edition of its revamped 24-team Club World Cup is set to take place in China in 2021. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino announced the news in a press conference held after the FIFA Council meeting in Shanghai on Thursday, October 24th.
The main reason why the 2021 Club World Cup is likely to be a success is not the prize money, the teams involved, or the format. It is the timing of the tournament. The current Club World Cup has to compete with the European soccer season, and midweek Champions League games are always going to be more popular globally than Al Sadd against Hienghene Sport.
The 2021 Club World Cup, which will take place between June and July, is played after the European seasons have finished, so it has the soccer marketplace almost completely to itself, and will be the main focus of the media and marketers as well as fans. This scheduling change gives FIFA the opportunity to turn an unpopular tournament into an extremely lucrative event.
It also fits neatly into the 4-year summer tournament cycle, with continental national team tournaments like Euro 2020 in the first year, the Club World Cup in the second year, the men’s World Cup in the third year, and the women’s World Cup in the fourth year.
The main thing standing in the way of its success is its current ‘unloved’ reputation. It’s seen as something that happens far away from soccer’s core European markets, and is a bit ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for many fans. For this reason, holding the inaugural Club World Cup tournament in China could be a miscalculation by FIFA.
China is a huge market, with Gianni Infantino going as far as calling it a “continent” in the Thursday press conference. It’s interested in actually hosting the tournament. It is also home of many potential sponsors, including Wanda, one of FIFA’s five partners, so it was only a matter of time before China hosted a major tournament. The problem is, the Club World Cup is not a major soccer tournament, not yet anyway.
Gianni Infantino said China was chosen because this competition replaces the Confederations Cup, which would have been played in Asia, and that China would be the most competitive bid in Asia. FIFA’s remit is to spread soccer around the world, and hosting this competition in China will spread soccer to new areas far more than hosting it in England or Spain might.
That being said, hosting the first revamped tournament in Europe could have helped FIFA build a sense of excitement around the revamp rather than risk it feeling like a post-season tour. Alternatively, FIFA could have placed the 2021 tournament in the USA and got America’s marketing juggernaut behind it.
The USA will most likely host the 2025 Club World Cup as a dress rehearsal for its United 2026 World Cup, but by using the Club World Cup in such a way diminishes its (potential) importance and also means that global soccer tournaments end up concentrated in a few parts of the world rather than reaching new territories. It may have been a wiser strategy to have the USA host the 2021 Club World Cup and have China host the 2025 edition.
While China 2021 risks being something fans don’t care about, FIFA also faces the risk that people care too much. China’s many human rights abuses, and Beijing’s thin skin when these abuses are highlighted, has become the hot topic in basketball’s NBA right now, and protests like Lyon fans’ giant Tibet flag display suggest the issue may well spread to soccer.
FIFA doesn’t want to get involved in the issue, with Gianni Infantino saying that “it’s not the mission of FIFA to solve the problems of the world,” and that FIFA’s role is to develop soccer in all countries in the world. He also claims that nobody has ever had trouble participating in any FIFA competition anywhere. But despite FIFA’s wishes, it may find itself caught between the interests of sponsors, fans, clubs and the tournament’s host nation if players or clubs decide to use the Club World Cup as an opportunity to highlight China’s human rights issues.
FIFA has also revealed which teams are likely to make up the 2021 Club World Cup, although at the moment the exact details haven’t been confirmed. As it is a world competition, and not a European competition, it is only right that European teams only make up a third of the teams. Four of UEFA’s spots go to the Champions League winners and four to the Europa League winners, but given La Liga and the Premier League’s dominance of both these competitions (Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Liverpool and Chelsea have already theoretically qualified for China 2021), it’s likely that much of Europe, especially Eastern Europe, will not be represented at the 2021 Club World Cup. As a result, there is the possibility of UEFA only allowing each country a limited number of slots.
South America will get six slots, with four of them going to the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana winners in 2019 and 2020. North America, Asia and Africa will all have three spots each, with a maximum of two teams allowed from the same country.
Even if no Chinese teams take one of Asia’s three spots, the hosts will also likely be represented as a Chinese side will play a side from Oceania in a playoff to determine the tournament’s final spot. This lack of a full spot for Oceania is one of the reasons why the exact make up of the competition hasn’t been confirmed, and is another issue that needs sorting out for the tournament to be a success.
2019-10-24 12:58:55Z
https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveprice/2019/10/24/risks-and-rewards-as-fifa-reveals-club-world-cup-revamp/
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