Javier Tebas, President of Spain’s La Liga, asked for a quick end to the club World Cup.
The tournament with 32 teams will be organized by FIFA for the first time in the USA in the USA in the USA. “I hope that there will be no second edition of the club World Cup,” said Javier Tebas on the sidelines of the Spobis conference in Hamburg. “I don’t want this tournament, because there is no space in the calendar. I don’t see any future for the club World Cup.”
For Tebas, the FIFA’s new tournament is too much an appointment in the international football calendar, for leagues and cup competitions it is becoming increasingly difficult to start their games. The UEFA had reformed its European Cup competitions in the 2024/25 season and has already brought several new appointments to the calendar.
DFL also indicates dangers through too many appointments
DFL managing director Marc Lenz generally addressed the disadvantages of the additional dates in the football calendar at the conference. In addition to a distribution struggle for organizing associations for the money of the TV stations, he called the risk that the gap between big and small clubs in national leagues can grow by distributing money from international competitions.
Together with Spain’s league, the European League Association and the International Gaming Union FIFPRO, the DFL is currently taking action against FIFA at the European Commission with a formal complaint. It is criticized in the fact that FIFA designs the calendar without inclusion of leagues and players. FIFA expressly rejects the allegations.
The relationship between FIFA and FIFPRO had deteriorated sharply, but recently there was some thaw by meeting the new FIFPro President Sergio Marchi with FIFA President Gianni Infantino
FIFA President Gianni Infantino
Tebas: “Money? The tournament will not meet the expectations”
FIFA had promised the clubs a lot of money to participate in the club World Cup. At one of his last press conferences so far in March 2023, FIFA President Infantino attributed the tournament a value of “a few billion”. According to media reports, the clubs were initially promised $ 50 million entry fee. But the marketing of the tournament rushed for a long time, many clubs now expect less.
Most recently, FIFA presented the first sponsors of the tournament and found a media partner with DAZN to show all games worldwide. According to media reports, DAZN pays almost one billion euros for tournaments 2025 and 2029. “The tournament has not yet fulfilled expectations financially and will never do it,” criticized Tebas. “The promises to the clubs were so high that it is impossible to fulfill them with this tournament.”
The new trophy of the club World Cup with Gianni Infantino’s autograph (top right)
Also Klopp against the club World Cup
Most recently, Jürgen Klopp had also critically commented on the new World Cup as a football director of Red Bull. “I know that (Red Bull) Salzburg is playing at the club World Cup. I have to say now that I love the competition? No. Because I still don’t do that,” said Klopp. The club World Cup is “senseless”.
“You don’t have a summer break. This means for players who played at the European Championship or Copa America last year, that they also play through this summer and then start the season. The winners of the tournament will be the poorest winners of all time.” He also referred to the burden and the risk of injury. “At some point we have to reduce the number of games,” said Klopp, also proposing to reduce leagues with 20 clubs to 18. In general, he added: “You don’t have to fill every gap in the calendar with football. The less you see something, the more you love it.”
Bayern: “We support the club World Cup”
However, Klopp does not speak for all clubs that take part in the new World Cup. Bayern Munich CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen spoke out for the tournament in October. “Of course we have to see how we manage it,” Dreesen said in an interview with the sports show with a view to the burden for the players. “On the other hand, we are qualified and look forward to it. And the players are also happy – so we support this club World Cup.”
Bayern Munich’s CEO addressed that salaries have increased over the years. “They have to come from somewhere. You can’t pay the salaries from the couch, we have to play for it.”