32-team Club World Cup: "FIFA's unilateral decisions are damaging for football industry" (WLF)

"FIFA's unilateral decisions on the calendar are damaging for the football industry," said World Leagues Forum on 16/12/2022.

The Zurich (SUI) based association, which represents 44 professional football leagues around the world, responded to FIFA's announcement on the same day of the launch of a quadrennial 32-team Club World Cup (which) is due to see the light of day in June 2025 (following the postponement of the first edition of the 24-team competition, scheduled for 2021).

WLF is also targeting the ongoing discussions within the International Federation regarding the format of the first round of the 2026 World Cup - the first with 48 teams (compared to 32 from 1998 to 2022) - which could be changed from 16 groups of three teams (48 matches in total in this phase), as previously envisaged, to 12 groups of four (72 matches).

"The interests of the football community, which we expect FIFA to take care of, are not best-served by piling-up FIFA-owned matches which only involve the top 1% of players. Instead, we should all expect FIFA to create the environment for a complementary…