Money talks as players suffer at the Club World Cup | OneFootball

There’s no shortage of star appeal, but what good can come of a tournament that will take players to the brink?

Today, you have in front of you a happy Fifa president,” Gianni Infantino grinned, as he addressed a pack of reporters in Miami in March 2019. “I am particularly happy — not for me, but for world football.” When he spoke more than six years ago, Infantino was unveiling what he believes will prove a gamechanger in club football: an expanded Club World Cup to be held not annually but every four years.

On Saturday, the inaugural edition of the expanded tournament finally kicks off, with FIFA hoping it’s a case of better late than never after the 2021 version in China was canned amid a backlog of sporting events postponed by Covid-19.

Infantino promised an “inclusive competition” and FIFA has not failed to deliver on that front, for what could be more inclusive than doing away with the old seven-team format in favour of, originally, 24 and, in the end, 32 teams?

The United States, a year out from co-hosting the first-ever 48-team World Cup, welcomes 32 clubs from 20 countries across six continents over the next month, testing that ageless American mantra that “bigger is better”. FIFA hope that holding it once every four years will grow its grandeur to match that of a major tournament. If nothing else, its $1billion (£739m) prize money is an easy sell to those involved.

However lucrative the riches at stake, there is a sense here of football eating itself. Conversations about player welfare and burnout simmer away while the game’s governing bodies continue to cook up new competitions, expand old ones, and pile yet more into an already packed calendar.

I don’t think the players are listened to that much. Everyone wants their piece, their tournament, their prize — and the players have to get on with it

Harry Kane

Sales have been poor. The same tickets for the opening game between Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami and Al Ahly of Egypt sold for £258 each in December were slashed to 16 per cent of that price just last week. Broadcasters have been even less enthusiastic. After the BBC and ITV both declined to air it, DAZN purchased the exclusive rights to all 63 games in a deal worth $1bn which saw it sublicense its coverage to 60 broadcasters worldwide, including Channel 5 in the UK. That was in December, two months before Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns four Saudi Pro League teams including participants Al Hilal, bought a $1bn stake in DAZN. Last week, PIF was announced as an official Club World Cup partner.

Whatever is to be made of all that, clubs now face greater pressure than ever to balance the books in an era of financial regulation in football, so the prize money is not to be sniffed at. The 32 sides will split £406m in participation fees — how’s your luck, Auckland City?! — while the winners will earn up to £97m, comparable with the payout for winning the Premier League (£181m) or Champions League (£94m). This month across the pond will leave teams quids in.

While the money talks, it’s the players who will suffer. Many European players and unions already feel players are being stretched to breaking point, with new and larger competitions compounding the effects of longer, money-spinning pre-season tours in the US, Far East or Australia.

Players from the 12 European teams, particularly, will be conscious their peers from clubs not competing are already jetting off on summer getaways before the competition has even kicked off.

Harry Kane has already played 61 times for club and country this season

REUTERS

The England manager, Thomas Tuchel, says he expects players to “suffer” in the American summer heat, both at this Club World Cup and next year’s World Cup. The soaring temperatures will only exacerbate fatigue.

Harry Kane is one of nine players involved in England’s recent matches against Andorra and Senegal now turning his attention to the Club World Cup. Bayern Munich’s first game is just five days after Kane faced Senegal. He summed up the tension between players, clubs and football authorities caused by new competitions such as the expanded Club World Cup when he spoke to reporters in March.

Messi leads heavyweight cast

Chelsea fly from London to Philadelphia on Friday and seem as up for it as any of the major European powerhouses, having qualified as winners of the 2021 Champions League under Tuchel’s guidance. The Conference League, which completed their European set, could be quickly followed by another trophy, though coming out on top from a field featuring Real Madrid, Bayern, City and newly-crowned European champions Paris Saint-Germain would be quite the feat for Enzo Maresca’s fledgling team.

Chelsea moved decisively to sign Liam Delap from Ipswich for his £30m relegation release clause and to wrestle him away from England’s Under-21 Euros campaign so he can make his Blues debut in the US. There is no indication Chelsea will play their second string as they did in the Conference League, but supporters can expect a first look at much-hyped youngsters Andrey Santos, 21, Dário Essugo, 20, and Mamadou Sarr, 19.

Lionel Messi features in the opening game

REUTERS

They begin in Group D on Monday against Los Angeles FC, a reunion with Olivier Giroud, before facing 2022 South American champions Flamengo on June 20. Then come Tunisia’s ES Tunis on June 25 with kick-off scheduled for 2am UK time. Just for getting out of the group, Chelsea could pocket £40m.

Benfica or Argentina’s Boca Juniors could lie in wait in the round of 16, and then a potential quarter-final against PSG. Désiré Doué and Ousmane Dembélé versus Cole Palmer and Moises Caicedo; whatever the stage, that appeals.

There is plenty of star appeal to be found elsewhere. Trent Alexander-Arnold will make his Real Madrid debut, lining up alongside his close friend and England team-mate Jude Bellingham, who will undergo shoulder surgery next month and miss the start of the season.

Jude’s brother, Jobe, could play for Borussia Dortmund after signing from Sunderland. The siblings could meet in the quarter-finals.

And there is a chance to watch players that European football fans seldom get to see, now they are in the winter of their careers and playing elsewhere. Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi is the obvious one, but also his team-mate Luis Suárez, Boca Juniors’ Edinson Cavani, Monterrey’s Sergio Ramos and Thiago Silva of Fluminense. Messi, the youngest of those, turns 38 during the tournament.

For Manchester City, the opportunity arises to win a first and only trophy of the season, unless (as Pep Guardiola does) one counts the Community Shield. Rodri can work to full fitness, as City start their rebuild early. That said, they and Chelsea will likely be shattered by the end of all this, potentially handing Arsenal and Liverpool a big advantage before the Premier League has even begun.

Valid questions have been asked about the sporting integrity of how to qualify for this Club World Cup. The last four continental champions of each confederation are here — that’s fair enough — but then coefficient rankings were used to make it up to 32 teams, a handpicking of the world’s best clubs. Liverpool ought to be here on that basis but City and Chelsea were already in and FIFA felt two clubs per country was plenty, leaving it all feeling rather manufactured.

Trent Alexander-Arnold will make his Real Madrid debut in the competition

AFP via Getty Images

Bayern Munich versus Boca Juniors is what FIFA says it envisaged when the event was conceived, but one wonders whether Real Madrid versus Al Hilal is not a closer approximation of the bridging of the football world this competition is really seeking to achieve. FIFA will keep none of the tournament revenues, it insists, and has even pledged £185m of its $1bn prize money will go to non-participating clubs worldwide in “solidarity payments”. Doja Cat (inset, left) will headline a Super Bowl-style half-time show at the final at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium (above) on July 13, with the winners to wear a champions crest on their shirts for four seasons. Nothing has been done by halves.

Dry run for the World Cup

In years gone by, the continental champions at national team level would compete in the Confederations Cup, held the year before a World Cup in the host country, a run-through for the main event. Scrapped in 2017, an expanded Club World Cup appears to be its replacement in that sense. Next year’s other co-hosts Canada and Mexico are not involved here, but the next month should tell us much about how ready the US is to host the World Cup. Will pitches be up to standard? Will security? A 48-team World Cup will be a massive undertaking. Considering how much the England players struggled in Barcelona against Andorra, one key learning will be how players acclimatise to the East Coast heat.

This revamped Club World Cup is to be the first of many, with the next one in 2029. For clubs, it’s a cash cow. But for players and fans, the next month will tell us whether it can ever catch on.

There’s no shortage of star appeal, but what good can come of a tournament that will take players to the brink? By Dom Smith