April 19 – In a move that is viewed in many league and confederation circles as a money-motivated assault on confederation club competition revenues by the FIFA administration, plans are reportedly afoot to ditch the Confederations Cup, the traditional World Cup warm-up tournament, and expand the Club World Cup.
The AFP news agency says a letter was sent by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to the heads of the six continental confederations outlining plans to play the Club World Cup every four years in June instead of annually and expand the current format though it is not known by how many teams. Under the proposal, last summer’s Confederations Cup in Russia — won by Germany — will be the last.
Earlier this week, Infantino said he was keen to expand the Club World Cup to 24 teams but failed to mention discuss scrapping the Confederations Cup, a crucial testing ground for World Cup hosts, in the process. Neither tournament has been especially lucrative or attractive to sponsors and such a strategy would, if sold effectively, conceivably add considerably to FIFA’s revenue streams while at the same time threatening the various confederation Champions League revenue bases – and in particular the UEFA competitions.
Currently only the champion clubs from the six confederations plus the hosts take part in the Club World Cup but the gulf in quality is often laughable and only sides from Europe or South America have ever won it.
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