CLUB WORLD CUP
Club World Cup set for June-July 2025, new Intercontinental Cup in 2024, says FIFA
FIFA’s revamped Club World Cup planned for 2025 and set to feature 32 teams will be played from June 15 to July 13, while a new Intercontinental Cup will be played annually from 2024, Gianni Infantino, the head of world football’s governing body, said on Dec 17.
The announcement drew criticism from the global players’ union Fifpro as well as the World Leagues Forum (WLF), an organisation representing 44 major professional leagues that is chaired by Premier League chief Richard Masters.
FIFA had announced an expanded Club World Cup earlier in 2023 and unanimously voted the United States as hosts for the first edition of the event.
The Fifa council meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to ratify the dates for the Club World Cup, also confirmed that 2024’s Intercontinental Cup would have the Champions League winners playing a team who came through intercontinental play-offs, which will be played on Dec 14, 2024, followed by the final four days later.
The 2025 edition of the Club World Cup, which will be held every four years, will have eight groups of four with the top two teams from each group going through to the knockout stages – the same format as the World Cup.
Four European places have been given to the winners of the Champions League dating back to 2021, namely Chelsea, Real Madrid and Manchester City, as well as the eventual victors of the 2024 campaign.
A further five clubs from the continent have already qualified for the 2025 tournament thanks to their Uefa ranking: Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Porto and Benfica.
The current version of the Club World Cup – an annual competition with seven teams – will be discontinued after the 2023 tournament, which is under way in Saudi Arabia.
The existing format sees the European and South American champions enter the tournament in the semi-final phase, while champions from the other confederations come through earlier rounds.
The dates of the Club World Cup, however, give European teams who qualify little time to rest between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. The European season traditionally ends in May, with the Champions League final taking place by the first week of June, while the new season kicks off in August.
WLF chair Masters said they were unhappy that they had been overlooked in Fifa’s decision-making process.
In a letter seen by Reuters, Masters told Infantino that the expansion of Fifa’s competitions in recent years was detrimental to other football stakeholders and accused the global body of prioritising their own interests.
Masters also said the June-July schedule would impact player availability for national leagues at the start of the season in August, while he also raised questions about player workload and health risks.
Fifpro said the decision to add a bigger Club World Cup at the end of the European season demonstrated “a lack of consideration” for players’ physical and mental health, and disregarded their personal and family lives.
“The expanded competition will undercut the rest and recovery time of these players at the end of the 2024-25 season, and further disrupt national employment markets by changing the balance between national and international competitions,” Fifpro said in a statement.
“Players will have to perform at the end of an 11-month season with little prospect of getting enough rest before the following season starts.”
“The extreme mental and physical pressures at the pinnacle of the game is the principal concern of players with multiple club and national team competitions, leading to exhaustion, physical injuries, mental health issues, diminished performance, and risks to career longevity,” it added.
Reuters/AFP
CLUB WORLD CUP
Referees’ body cameras will provide fans with unprecedented views of on-field action, says FIFA
FIFA unveiled its team of 117 match officials, opens new tab on Monday for the inaugural Club World Cup and said referees would wear body cameras and enforce stricter goalkeeper time-wasting rules at the tournament to be staged across the United States.
The FIFA Referees Committee appointed the officials from 41 member associations – 35 referees, 58 assistant referees and 24 video match officials – for the June 14 to July 13 event.
Body cameras will provide fans with unprecedented views of on-field action, FIFA said, while goalkeepers who hold the ball beyond eight seconds will now see opponents awarded corner kicks rather than indirect free kicks.
“We think that it is a good chance to offer the viewers a new experience, in terms of images taken from a perspective, from an angle of vision, which was never offered before,” said Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee.
“It also has a purpose in terms of referee coaching because, of course, having the possibility to see what the referee sees is important in the debriefing.”
Collina highlighted the historic nature of the appointments for the expanded tournament featuring 32 teams from all six FIFA confederations and spanning 12 stadiums in 11 U.S. host cities.
“The selected referees are among those who have the privilege to be part of this for the first time, so I’m sure that all the match officials will be thrilled,” he said.
“We are coming from high-standard performances delivered during the last FIFA tournaments. So the bar is higher and when you set the bar higher it’s more difficult to keep the standard. But we are working very hard and ‘Team One’ will make a solid contribution to the success of this exciting competition.”
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The expanded Club World Cup holding in the US has brought another innovation to football.
Referees at the championship holding from June 14 to July 13 will be equipped with body cameras and will implement a new rule to combat goalkeeper time-wasting.
Game directors will wear “body cameras as part of an experimental phase, the tests having been approved by IFAB ,” the body that oversees the rules of the game, the International Football Federation explained in a statement.
“We believe this is a good opportunity to offer viewers a new experience, with images taken from a perspective that has never been offered before,” explained FIFA Referees Committee chairman Pierluigi Collina.
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The change in football rules that allows goalkeepers to be punished with corner kicks will be implemented at the Club World Cup holding in June in the US.
The revelation was made by FIFA Referees Committee chairman Pierluigi Collina after the announcement that referees will wear body cameras.
This initiative is “both innovative for broadcasters and for referee training,” added the Italian, “because it is important to be able to put yourself in the referee’s shoes during the debriefing, to evaluate how the referee made his decisions, his point of view, etc. “
The competition will implement the new rule approved by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) on March 1, aimed at reducing time wastage by goalkeepers.
“If they hold the ball for more than eight seconds, the referee will award a corner. Previously, an indirect free kick could be awarded after six seconds.
Seminars for referees have been held recently. The one for UEFA referees was held at FIFA headquarters from March 31 to April 4. Another seminar was held in Dubai for referees from the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), and OFC (Oceania) from February 2 to 4, and a third for referees from CONMEBOL (South America) and CONCACAF (Central America and the Caribbean) took place in Buenos Aires from February 24 to 28.
“We need to see the game and the goals, not the refereeing,” said refereeing director Massimo Busacca. “The referee is the protagonist who should not be noticed during the match. A good referee doesn’t need to be seen or known. But he must be prepared. “
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