By Paul Nicholson
December 9 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has said that the new 24-team format Club World Cup, when it eventually holds its first edition “in China, will be the best club competition in the world.”
Speaking at the AFC’s 30th Annual Congress, held virtually, Infantino also said that the 2022 World Cup in “Qatar will be the best World Cup ever. Everything is progressing, everything will be together, everything state of the art. It will be the biggest football party like the world has never seen.”
Infantino’s claims for FIFA’s reformatted club competition is a direct challenge to UEFA who currently have the world’s premium club competition, leading teams and players, and a commercial and media programme that dwarfs all others. It also issues a smaller challenge to other confederations, all of whom’s top club competitions are experiencing significant regional growth – not least the AFC’s own Asian Champion League that completes this month.
Infantino, addressing AFC member associations directly, said that under normal circumstances “we should have played the new club world cup with 24 teams in China in June (2021). We will fix a (new) date very soon.”
While FIFA pushed back the China event, it is nevertheless still going ahead with two Club World Cups in Asia in 2021 using the current 7-team format – in Qatar in February and Japan in December. Explaining the postponement of the 24-team format, Infantino said: “We had to postpone because it was important to give space to Europe and South America to play the Euros and Copa America in June.”
Speaking about a football year that for nine months has been covid-crushed, Infantino said: “It has been a difficult year, something no-one predicted. We had to cancel competitions…football stopped…But football is more than just a game, it is also hope.”
Expanding his theme he pointed to the $1.5 billion Covid relief fund FIFA has put in place and that “no other sports organisation anywhere has come close to this.”
“We do this because we can help and can assist and because FIFA is strong because FIFA had its pandemic five years ago and we have our antibodies. It is clear we should help because we can,” he said.
Infantino highlighted that “since 2016 FIFA has invested over $320 million in Asian football. Five times more than what has happened before. We need to develop and invest and this money went into hundreds of projects. I am very proud of that and you should be also.”
Infantino promised that FIFA’s support would not be stopping there saying that: “My vision is to make football truly global with at least 50 countries with a legitimate chance of being World Champions and at least 50 clubs who could win the Club World Cup…We need to extend this base to the entire world. For this we need to invest more and to work more.”
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