Next year, FIFA plans to launch the new expanded edition of the Club World Cup in the United States, with 32 players from around the world vying for supremacy.
Chelsea, after a second consecutive season in the Champions League, will once again be among the elite of club football.
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FIFA’s decision to introduce a new competition, promising 63 matches in a month, in a busy component of the football calendar reserved for major foreign tournaments or players’ summer holidays, has sparked controversy. FIFPro and the World Leagues Association have threatened legal action. , accusing the government of not caring enough about the welfare of the players and the organization of the national leagues.
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But none of those considerations are shared in the corridors of strength at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea can be recognised as an enthusiastic supporter of the Club World Cup and take this into account when making resolutions on various levels, adding resolve to the tactical components with Mauricio Pochettino this summer and hiring Enzo Maresca as head coach on a five-year contract.
Chelsea were in what awaited them as a double season, with two domestic campaigns for the Club World Cup. They wanted to make sure they had a long-term coach who would fit their design and culture to minimize disruptions before the tournament. Maresca ticks those boxes to such an extent that they concluded that Pochettino simply didn’t.
Maresca’s most urgent priority is to lead Chelsea back to the Champions League by completing the Premier League’s maximum four in 2024-25. But the new Club World Cup is noticeable internally, along with the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup and the Europa Conference League. , as an important trophy to which he and his team aspire.
There are also plenty of ideas being given about how the Chelsea squad could best prepare to face up to 75 or 80 competitive matches in all competitions over the next 12 months. There are also considerations about how pre-season preparations will be organised for the 2025-2026 campaign could be superseded in light of the efforts made ahead of the Club World Cup.
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But overall, Chelsea do not believe that the summer of 2025 will be more complicated to manage than this one, in which a significant number of its players have been called up for the European Championship, the Copa America and the Olympic Games. In fact, one of the undeniable benefits of the Club World Cup is that clubs can manage the workload of their players and education systems more directly than they can influence the technique of national teams.
Despite all the demanding situations it poses, the expanded Club World Cup presents what all elite clubs have been looking for: a potentially lucrative opportunity to increase profits. Chelsea’s qualification for the inaugural edition of the competition, achieved by winning the Champions League in 2020. -21, is already having a positive effect on its “business value”, according to the prestigious analysis and data platform Football Benchmark.
FIFA has yet to verify the amount that will be given to Club World Cup participants and the eventual winner, while negotiations with potential broadcast and sponsorship partners drag on. Still, the final figures will be significant even for a club with Chelsea’s revenue, which surpassed the £500 million ($635 million) mark for the first time in its 2022-23 accounts.
As detailed in The Athletic earlier this month, FIFA still has several major hurdles to overcome to get the expanded Club World Cup off the ground. Chief among them are the finalisation of broadcast deals that balance guaranteed profits with TV visibility of a new competition, as well as sponsorship deals at a point that ensures participation is profitable for some of Europe’s biggest clubs.
But there is no doubt at Chelsea that FIFA will bring President Gianni Infantino’s grand concept to life next summer and it will eventually become a popular event on the football calendar every four years.
Real Madrid, despite public comments from coach Carlo Ancelotti, will participate in 2025. The same will happen with Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Porto, Benfica. and Red Bull Salzburg.
The last two years have highlighted that Chelsea are no longer guaranteed to compete with such a scarce European company. But it can also face the champions of the Copa Libertadores or the winners of the Champions League from North America, Asia or Africa. the de facto global nature of the tournament sets it apart and may make it resonate especially with the huge number of enthusiasts of Europe’s elite clubs living abroad.
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Chelsea sees their participation in the Club World Cup as a valuable opportunity to interact and further expand their gigantic global fan base. The United States is a useful host choice in this regard, offering a wide diversity of giant, chic stadiums surrounded by hotels and amenities that are with traveling fans.
It is also imaginable that FIFA will partner with a global streaming platform, which will make it simple to watch tournament matches on smartphones and tablets anywhere in the world.
More importantly, it’s a wonderful foreign level that Chelsea can safely incorporate into their plans. The same cannot be said for the Champions League, there are hopes that their exile from Europe’s elite club festival is coming to an end.
GOING FURTHER
A year before the Club World Cup in the United States, what is happening?
(Top photo: Francois Nel/Getty Images)