By David Owen
June 28 – Elite club football may be increasingly the province of the monied few, but the very biggest names from the club game are not having things all their own way at the 2014 World Cup.
With half of the 736 players initially included in World Cup squads now heading home – more than half if you include those like Luis Suárez who have been suspended or invalided out of the tournament – Bayern Munich have been left well out in front as the club supplying most players to have made it to the competition’s knockout phase.
Immediately below them in the rankings, though, come two less predictable names – Napoli and Porto.
Players from clubs in 36 countries in all are still fighting it out in Brazil. English clubs remain the best represented with 59 players, or 16.1% of those still involved in the tournament, based on the clubs assigned to players in the original squad-lists on FIFA’s website. They are followed by Italian clubs with 46 players and German clubs with 40.
The big five west European football markets account for 56% of those still battling to lift the World Cup. But tiny Costa Rica still has nine players in the knock-out phase – one fewer than Brazil and two more than Argentina. Meanwhile, clubs based in the USA supply 12 surviving players, amid increasing signs that the national team is attracting more attention than ever before in the land of gridiron and the baseball diamond.
These listings are of more than academic interest to clubs, since the more players they have at the tournament, and the longer they stay, the bigger the share of the $70 million set aside by FIFA to compensate squad players’ employers they are likely to receive.
Clubs can obtain $2,800 a day for each of their players involved in the World Cup, with the relevant period for the purposes of payment stretching from two weeks before the opening match of the tournament until a day after elimination. Whether a player actually appears in his country’s matches is not relevant. All clubs for which any given player has been registered in the past two years can receive a share of the FIFA payout on a pro rata basis.
In 2010, when FIFA made $40 million available, Barcelona received the highest payment of $866,267, with Bayern second and Chelsea third. This time, it looks highly likely that the biggest payments will top $1 million.
With countries such as Spain, Italy and England, which host prominent leagues, being eliminated from the World Cup early, it is hardly surprising that some leading clubs have seen their stables of Brazil 2014 participants much reduced.
Nonetheless, with Italy and Portugal both knocked out, the positions of Napoli and Porto come as a surprise. Both though supplied only one of their own nation’s unsuccessful World Cup squads, while both have contributed to six squads present in the Last 16.
Arsenal and Chelsea have been left as the best-represented English clubs, with seven players each, followed by another London club, Tottenham, whose six players in World Cup squads have all made it to the knockout stages.
The two Manchester clubs, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus are all in a group of big names with five players each still involved in the competition.
It is possible that a non-European club might sneak into the ranks of the best-represented clubs as the tournament progresses, with Mexico’s América currently alongside the likes of Basle, Lazio, PSV and Wolfsburg on four players.
The clubs supplying most players to the 2014 World Cup knockout stages, based on the original squad-lists on FIFA’s website, are as follows: Bayern Munich 12; Napoli 9; Porto 8; Arsenal, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain 7; Internazionale, Tottenham 6; Atlético Madrid, Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Feyenoord, Juventus, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle, Olympiacos, Real Madrid 5.
In descending order, the top 12 countries whose clubs are providing the most players to the knockout stages are as follows: England 59, Italy 46, Germany 40, Spain 37, France 23, Mexico 18, Holland 15, Portugal 14, USA 12, Brazil 10, Greece 10, Costa Rica 9.
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