{"id":725224,"date":"2026-06-25T13:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T13:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/725224\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T13:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T13:44:09","slug":"club-world-cup-likely-to-expand-for-2029-with-more-premier-league-clubs-involved-club-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/725224\/","title":{"rendered":"Club World Cup likely to expand for 2029 with more Premier League clubs involved | Club World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifa has agreed to create a joint venture with the lobby group European Football Clubs (EFC) to operate the Club World Cup<\/a>, which is likely to mean more Premier League clubs enter the lucrative competition.<\/p>\n

Chelsea earned about \u00a384m from winning last year\u2019s inaugural 32-team <\/a>tournament, leading other big European clubs to lobby Fifa for it to be expanded to increase their chances of qualification.<\/p>\n

EFC coming on board is likely to accelerate plans to expand the competition to 48 clubs when it next takes place in 2029.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Liverpool achieved the necessary standard to play in the 2025 Club World Cup but missed out because of the two-club-per-country cap. Photograph: Phil Noble\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The EFC is understood to want that cap lifted, which would have implications for English clubs because Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City<\/a> are all in Uefa\u2019s coefficient top eight.<\/p>\n

EFC is likely to argue that increasing the number of European clubs would increase the Club World Cup\u2019s commercial value following Fifa\u2019s struggle to sell TV rights<\/a> for the tournament.<\/p>\n

A $1bn (\u00a30.76bn) 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.<\/p>\n

EFC already has a joint venture with Uefa that runs European club competitions, UC3, and in time its arrangement with Fifa<\/a> is likely to operate on similar lines.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> the Spanish club were readmitted.<\/p>\n

Fifa is understood to have been impressed with EFC\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The EFC\u2019s current focus is agreeing a redistribution formula for the \u00a3185m owed to clubs across the world in solidarity payments from last year\u2019s tournament, which, as the Guardian reported in February<\/a>, 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 \u00a350,000 for every top-flight club in the world, but 12 months later are growing frustrated by the delay.<\/p>\n

The \u00a3740m prize money has been paid but the six confederations have yet to agree on how the \u00a3185m 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa has agreed to create a joint venture with the lobby group European Football Clubs (EFC) to operate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-725224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}