By Andrew Warshaw
March 5 – The head of the umbrella body representing Europe’s clubs repeated his concerns today about an increasingly congested international calendar, specifically targeting FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup which is due to get under way in 2021.
Almost six months after it was announced that China will host the first edition of the new-look 24-team tournament that FIFA president Gianni Infantino has hailed as “historic”, European Club Association president Andrea Agnelli said there was still considerable scepticism about the event thoughout his organisation’s membership.
Speaking at the FT Football Business Summit in London, the Juventus boss said potential changes to the international match calendar was “the big topic of the moment”.
“The biggest challenge that we have is who plays when from 2024 onwards,” Agnelli told delegates. “What we at the ECA are advocating is streamlining the calendar so that individual confederation tournaments are played at the same time with the same cycle and not in even years, odd years, summers, winters etc. What we want is a harmonisation of dates.”
As regards the Club World Cup, Agnelli would not be drawn on the threat of European clubs pulling out of the event in protest at not being consulted.
But he remarked pointedly: “If you build a house you start from the foundations and not the chimney. You should set the international match calendar first and work out what can be done, then talk about the club world cup.”
Admitting that the Club World Cup in its current guise was a redundant tournament that needs revamping, Agnelli added: “All we know is the slot allocation per confederation. There has been no evaluation and no consultation about the format. That’s all we know at the moment. It’s hardly been an orthodox way of proposing a project. We don’t know what shape it will have or what value.”
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