FIFA’s club tournament has been redesigned, and the awards for the 32 participating clubs have been significantly increased.
The eagerly awaited 2025 FIFA Club World Cup will begin on June 15 and run for 29 days during the summer, ending on July 13. This is the Club World Cup’s inaugural season.
The Club World Cup was reintroduced in 2005 with participation from FIFA’s six continental confederations and one club from the host country, after it was first introduced in 2000 as an eight-team competition. However, Gianni Infantino, the controversial president of FIFA, has redesigned the event for 2025.
What is the format of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup?
The tournament will have a system akin to the FIFA World Cup, except it will be for clubs. Eight groups of four teams each will be formed from a total of 32 teams. Each group’s top two teams will move on to the knockout stage, which will go like this:
1. Round of 16 (first knockout round)
2. Quarter-finals
3. Semi-finals
4. Final
What is the Total Prize Money Pool for the FIFA Club World Cup?
The honey pot’s significantly larger size is the main storyline of this version of the FIFA Club World Cup. Although the prize money was only $16 million in 2023, it has since skyrocketed to $2.65 billion, making the Club World Cup one of the most profitable competitions in football worldwide.
This is how the funds will be distributed. In addition to the roughly $50 million each of the 32 participating teams would receive simply for showing there, there will be further awards based on performance. Meanwhile, a staggering $100 million will be awarded to the winner. In contrast, the previous tournament’s winners received $5 million, runners-up received $4 million, third place received $2.5 million, fourth place received $2 million, fifth place received $1.5 million, and sixth place received $1 million.
The specifics of the 2025 award money distribution have not yet been made public. In the past, the large clubs had been promised that participation would generate up to $80 million in revenue. This ambiguity is consistent with a lot of the ambiguity surrounding this new tournament format. Since the tournament’s funding is still unknown, many of the financial specifics are still up in the air.
In July 2024, FIFA launched a broadcast rights bidding campaign following rumours that talks with Apple had broken down. Infantino reportedly wanted a figure closer to $4 billion, thus their $1 billion bid fell short. Although nothing has been announced yet, the competition may now get funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund through an investment in FIFA’s streaming network.
