FIFA’S failure to consult the world’s domestic leagues over its plans to expand the World Cup and Club World Cup has been labelled “strange and maybe even crazy.”
Football’s world governing body confirmed the format for the 48-team 2026 World Cup back in March, along with additional detail on the 32-team Club World Cup to be played every four years from 2025.
The World Leagues Forum, an organisation chaired by Premier League chief executive Richard Masters, said earlier this month it would seek “meaningful representation” in calendar discussions before it could agree to Fifa’s changes.
It remains to be seen what methods leagues could use to block Fifa’s plans but Jacco Swart, the managing director of the European Leagues group, expressed his dissatisfaction with Fifa’s approach.
“It’s a very strange, maybe even crazy situation that the representative bodies of competition organisers and professional league club football in the world is not seriously even consulted when Fifa unilaterally, more or less, decides to change a very important topic like the international match calendar,” Swart said at European Leagues’ general assembly in Riga yesterday.
Fifa points out the overall “footprint” of the 48-team finals will be 56 days, the same as the summer finals in 2010, 2014 and 2018, and that the Club World Cup replaces the Confederations Cup on the calendar.
However, leagues are concerned about the impact on players returning to their clubs after these summer tournaments, and from an economic perspective on the impact of expanding international events on the value of their domestic competitions.
Swart, whose organisation includes the Premier League, the EFL and the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) among its membership, added: “We have been seeing over the last years that international competitions are growing and these are competitions organised by governing bodies, instead of domestic competitions growing.
“And if you look at the economics, it is still a fact that the majority of the revenue all across the world is coming from the domestic competitions.
“Also the vast majority of fans are fans of the domestic competitions, and the teams participating in domestic competitions. The vast majority of the players are playing in teams who do not play in international competitions. So we have serious arguments to be not too happy about this.”
Alberto Colombo, the general secretary of European Leagues, also pointed out that handing prize money to the small number of clubs competing in a Club World Cup would exacerbate the “sporting polarisation” between those clubs and other teams within their domestic leagues.
Fifa has been contacted for comment.
Meanwhile, Swart declared himself “happy” with the new revenue distribution agreement struck with Uefa and the European Club Association for the 2024-27 cycle of European club competitions.
Clubs across the continent who are not involved in European competition will now receive 7 per cent of revenue, up from 5 per cent in the current cycle, which European Leagues say will equate to €308 million (£268m) per season.
However, Swart and Colombo confirmed that the amount is capped, and that if actual revenue from Europe’s club competitions rises above the projected earnings of €4.4 billion (£3.83bn), any surplus will be shared by the competing clubs and Uefa.
