{"id":584978,"date":"2026-08-14T23:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T23:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/584978\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T23:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T23:50:14","slug":"europes-top-clubs-threatened-club-world-cup-boycott-before-fifa-plan-collapsed-fifa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/584978\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s top clubs threatened Club World Cup boycott before Fifa plan collapsed | Fifa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Europe\u2019s leading clubs threatened not to participate in future Club World Cups unless Gianni Infantino<\/a> withdrew his Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme, issuing their ultimatum hours before the plan was scrapped.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the Fifa secretary general, Mattias Grafstr\u00f6m, the influential European Football Clubs (EFC) group warned that its cooperation with future tournaments would hinge on Infantino backing down. It said the threat would hold unless a joint venture between EFC and Fifa \u2013 a framework for which has already been agreed \u2013 is completed before television rights can be sold for the 2028 Women\u2019s Club World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The letter, dated 31 July and signed by the EFC chief executive, Charlie Marshall, said Infantino\u2019s actions could constitute a \u201csubstantial breach\u201d of the bodies\u2019 existing memorandum of understanding (MoU) and suggested this could be grounds for its termination. It floated the idea that EFC and its clubs may push back against the international match calendar and its player release rules, which are crucial to ensuring national team tournaments can function. Infantino shelved the privately backed Football Forward Enterprise (FFE)<\/a> in the early hours of 1 August after widespread condemnation.<\/p>\n

Fundamental to EFC\u2019s complaints was the impression FFE would bring all broadcasting, commercial and sponsorship rights under its own umbrella. The letter asked Fifa<\/a> to confirm this and said it would take decisive action if these elements were not included in the long-proposed joint venture, whose creation is enshrined in the MoU and intended to involve managing the commercial side of global club competitions. It witheringly wrote that the tie-in had, \u201cunlike the FFE proposal, made no meaningful progress over the past year\u201d. EFC already has a similar joint venture with Uefa, named UC3, which was launched in 2025.<\/p>\n

A potentially incendiary section read: \u201cUnless a fully operational Fifa-EFC CWC joint venture, with exclusive authority over, among other things, all commercial and operational matters, is established well ahead of the women\u2019s 2028 Fifa CWC rights cycle, EFC will not support \u2013 and its member clubs will not participate in \u2013 any future edition, including the women\u2019s and men\u2019s 2028 and 2029 Fifa CWC.\u201d<\/p>\n

In theory the threat still holds although Fifa, in a response to EFC\u2019s letter since Infantino climbed down, is understood to have promised a swift meeting to keep the joint venture on track. EFC\u2019s position followed concerns raised by a vast number of clubs around Europe, who were angered by the lack of consultation around the design of FFE. One major European club expressed concerns in its own letter saying it would support EFC in any \u201cfirmer collective action\u201d if necessary and called for \u201cmore rigorous and transparent governance processes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Any European withdrawal from Club World Cups would in practice mean those tournaments could not run. EFC and Fifa operated last year\u2019s Club World Cup, the first to take place with 32 teams, using a short-term prototype for any future joint venture. No hosts have yet been announced for the new-look Women\u2019s Club World Cup or the next edition of the men\u2019s tournament in 2029.<\/p>\n

Chelsea won the Club World Cup in July 2025 by beating Paris Saint-Germain in the final. Photograph: Chris Brunskill\/Fantasista\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

EFC\u2019s letter also raised the continuing delay, first reported in February<\/a>, in distributing \u00a3185m of solidarity money to clubs that did not participate in the Club World Cup. Transparency over the event\u2019s financial performance was also requested.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ask that you urgently share the final surplus revenue generated by the 2025 Fifa WC, together with a full profit and loss statement, so that all revenues, expenses and costs can be properly assessed in line with our partnership in this competition,\u201d it said. \u201cThe absence of information on this matter, as with the lack of a solution on CWC solidarity for over a year, is also of serious concern and disappointment to EFC and our member clubs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It is understood there is increasing optimism that this issue is on the verge of resolution, although a notional average \u00a350,000 windfall for every global top-flight club, if the pot was divided equally, pales in comparison with the \u00a384m reward long since banked by last year\u2019s winners, Chelsea.<\/p>\n

Referring to clubs releasing players for international duty, EFC continued: \u201cOur memorandum of understanding, set to expire on 30 December 2030, includes EFC\u2019s and its member clubs\u2019 acceptance of the international match calendar and the release rules. Both are directly relevant for Fifa\u2019s non-European member associations and to any value FFE may have.\u201d It said Fifa\u2019s apparent commercial vision for FFE constituted a \u201cserious breach of trust\u201d and warned the MoU could be jeopardised.<\/p>\n

The letter demonstrates the extraordinary level of leverage EFC, which is chaired by the Paris Saint-Germain president, Nasser al-Khelaifi, can claim over Fifa and its increasing influence on football\u2019s future. The organisation, set up in 2008 as a lobby group for clubs around the continent, now has well over 800 members although only a minority hold full voting rights. Some stakeholders elsewhere in football\u2019s ecosystem have expressed fears about the level of power it has assumed. A separate representative body, the Union of European Clubs<\/a>, was created in 2023 to represent smaller sides but is not recognised by Uefa.<\/p>\n

One potential consequence of EFC\u2019s discussions with Fifa could, in the medium term, be its expansion into a group representing clubs around the world. More immediately, last month\u2019s letter demanded that Fifa deliver on a previous promise to fully integrate Al-Khelaifi into the Fifa council, which is purportedly its main decision-making body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s leading clubs threatened not to participate in future Club World Cups unless Gianni Infantino withdrew his Fifa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-584978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}