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Fifa has agreed to create a joint venture with the lobby group European Football Clubs (EFC) to operate the Club World Cup, which is likely to mean more Premier League clubs enter the lucrative competition.
Chelsea earned about £84m from winning last year’s inaugural 32-team tournament, leading other big European clubs to lobby Fifa for it to be expanded to increase their chances of qualification.
EFC coming on board is likely to accelerate plans to expand the competition to 48 clubs when it next takes place in 2029.
Europe was represented by 12 clubs in the US last summer, with six from South America and five from the Concacaf North American confederation, but some of the biggest clubs in the world were absent.
Liverpool, Barcelona and Napoli, the then champions of England, Spain and Italy respectively, did not take part, with qualification restricted to the four previous winners of the Champions League, and eight clubs with the highest Uefa coefficient. Fifa also capped entrants at two per country.
The EFC is understood to want that cap lifted, which would have implications for English clubs because Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City are all in Uefa’s coefficient top eight.
EFC is likely to argue that increasing the number of European clubs would increase the Club World Cup’s commercial value following Fifa’s struggle to sell TV rights for the tournament.
A $1bn (£0.76bn) global TV deal was eventually agreed with Dazn after the streaming company received an equivalent investment from the Saudi Arabian-government backed Surj Sports Investments.
EFC already has a joint venture with Uefa that runs European club competitions, UC3, and in time its arrangement with Fifa is likely to operate on similar lines.
There was tension between the organisations before the first edition of the expanded Club World Cup in the US, which Fifa insisted on running themselves, but relations have improved.
EFC, chaired by the Paris Saint-Germain president, Nasser al-Khelaifi, represents more than 700 European clubs, including all of the biggest ones after Real Madrid returned to the fold this year. Real were suspended from the EFC for five years due to their agitation to create a European Super League, in defiance of Uefa, but after formally withdrawing from the project last February the Spanish club were readmitted.
Fifa is understood to have been impressed with EFC’s commercial work on behalf of Uefa, whose media and sponsorship revenues for the Champions League and other club competitions have increased by about 25% over the next four-year cycle, from 2027.
The EFC’s current focus is agreeing a redistribution formula for the £185m owed to clubs across the world in solidarity payments from last year’s tournament, which, as the Guardian reported in February, has yet to be paid. Clubs that did not participate in the tournament were promised a share of the sum, which if shared equally would amount to about £50,000 for every top-flight club in the world, but 12 months later are growing frustrated by the delay.
The £740m prize money has been paid but the six confederations have yet to agree on how the £185m solidarity fees should be distributed. After that is resolved attention is likely to turn to discussions over the next Club World Cup in 2029 and its possible expansion to 48 teams.
