The expanded FIFA Club World Cup takes place in 2025, with two Premier League teams - and Lionel Messi's Inter Miami - involved.

The new-look Club World Cup will feature 32 teams and will be played every four years from the summer of 2025. It is an expansion of the previous version of the tournament, which took place every year and involved just seven teams from around the world.

Europe has 12 clubs in the 32-team tournament and the spaces are allocated based on performances in the Champions League over four seasons from 2020/21 up to and including this season.

For the 2025 competition, the winners of the Champions League over the last three seasons - Chelsea, Real Madrid and Manchester City - will be joined by the best-performing sides in the tournament in the same period, with Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan qualifying through the ranking route.

The Asian Football Confederation, African Federation and the North American Federation get four teams each based on the winners and best-performing teams in their respective Champions League competitions, while the South American federation will get six teams who perform best in the Copa Libertadores.

One slot goes to one team from the Oceania Football Confederation - the best performing team in the OFC Champions League over the last four years, with the final slot going to an additional team from the host nation. Lionel Messi's Inter Miami have taken that spot after winning the 2024 MLS Supporters' Shield.

Club World Cup draw in full

Group A:

Palmeiras (Brz)

Porto (Por),

Al Ahly (Egy),

Inter Miami (USA)

Group B:

Paris Saint-Germain (Fra),

Atletico Madrid (Esp),

Botafogo (Brz),

Seattle Sounders (USA)

Group C:

Bayern Munich (Ger),

Benfica (Por),

Boca Juniors (Arg),

Auckland City (Nzl)

Group D:

Flamingo (Brz),

Chelsea (Eng),

Esperance Sportive de Tunis (Tun),

Los Angeles FC (USA)

Group E:

River Plate (Arg),

Inter Milan (Ita),

CF Monterrey (Mex),

Urawa Red Diamonds (Jpn)

Group F:

Fluminense (Brz),

Borussia Dortmund (Ger),

Ulsan HD (Kor),

Mamelodi Sundowns (Rsa)

Group G:

Man City (Eng),

Juventus (Ita),

Wydad AC (Mor),

Al Ain (UAE)

Group H:

Real Madrid (Esp),

FC Salzburg (Aut),

Al Hilal (Rsa),

CF Pachuca (Mex)

Interested to see how this gets on. The ticket sales have been dire and it really does feel like too much football and an attempt to get the marketable US teams, mixed with Saudi and the big European teams.

Ultimately I think the tournament will be a success, as there's so much money involved, but I'm expecting low engagement really. Think it needs a few more European teams and clearly they're going to have to tweak the format as it feels strange to have it without the current Premier League & La Liga champions.

One other interesting piece is it looks like the teams involved are not having a pre-season at all really as the CWC is their pre-season! Don't know how that will play out over the season.

It's a tournament no one asked for and no one cares about.

Well, thank you so much Mr. Florentino Perez for indirectly ruining the essential of FCWC.

Those Corinthians cinderella stories will never happen again, unfortunately. :(

10 hours ago, Dobbo said:

It's a tournament no one asked for and no one cares about.

Except the clubs involved! The money involved is insane. Channel 5 have the UK broadcast rights for some cases. I’ll be interested to see how it gets on.

I don't know if I will watch this to be honest, it doesn't feel like a tournament that is really important. It's like one of those pre-season cup tournaments that you can participate in on career mode in the FIFA/FC video games. Of course it's to come next year but a FIFA World Cup tournament would have been really nice as it's felt like such a long time since there was a summer World Cup.

I think Channel 5 will be showing some of the games as well with Premier Sports as the main broadcaster.

Sorry my mistake it is DAZN that are the main broadcaster for this. Not Premier Sports.

Is Ch5 getting live games or highlights?

Should be an interesting event at least, will be interesting to see how the non-European teams fare against the European ones. Provides a bit more substance than the previous Club World Cups where the final was almost always the winner of the Champions League beating the winner of the Copa Libertadores!

On 05/06/2025 at 19:22, Steve201 said:

Is Ch5 getting live games or highlights?

Channel 5 are showing 23 live games of the FIFA Club World Cup.

Oh fun!!

They’ve also booked doja cat and some others for halftime shows to try and make it like the Super Bowl. Could work but could easily be a disaster this whole thing

So they're trying to over-Americanise a commodity that most Americans themselves don't even care for, let alone the rest of the world.

I think the problem is only having, what it is three Premier League teams? and a few MLS teams, otherwise only the hardcore football fans over here are going to know any of the other teams other than the other major Champions League level squads.

Nobody knows any of the african/asian/south american teams, so it's hard to get excited about.

It's not like the World Cup where this country will get national support because of the how many cultures are blended amongst our population, so a Japanese-American for example will get excited about going to the Japan match, etc.

Club World Cup Odds: (Coral)

Real Madrid 4-1f

PSG 9-2

Man City 11-2

Bayern Munich 6-1

Chelsea 11-1

Atletico Madrid 14-1

Inter Milan 16-1

Borussia Dortmund 20-1

Flamengo 33-1

Juventus 33-1

Benfica 40-1

Al-Hilal 40-1

Boca Juniors 50-1

Botafogo 50-1

Palmeiras 50-1

Porto 50-1

River Plate 50-1

Inter Miami 66-1

Fluminense 66-1

Salzburg 66-1

Los Angeles FC 80-1

Seattle Sounders 100-1

Al-Ahly 150-1

Al-Ain 150-1

Pachuca 150-1

Urawa 150-1

Monterrey 200-1

Ulsan HD 200-1

Esperance Sportive de Tunis 500-1

Sundowns 500-1

Wydad AC 500-1

Auckland City 1000-1

Channel 5 Live Games: (UK Times)

Sunday 15th June 2025:

Al Ahly v Inter Miami (01:00) [Group A]

Bayern Munich v Auckland City (17:00) [Group C]

Monday 16th June 2025:

Chelsea v Los Angeles FC (20:00) [Group D]

Boca Juniors v Benfica (23:00) [Group C]

Tuesday 17th June 2025:

Fluminense v Borussia Dortmund (17:00) [Group F]

Wednesday 18th June 2025:

Manchester City v Wydad AC (17:00) [Group G]

Real Madrid v Al-Hilal (20:00) [Group H]

Saturday 21st June 2025:

Bayern Munich v Boca Juniors (02:00) [Group C]

Sunday 22nd June 2025:

Juventus v Wydad AC (17:00) [Group G]

Monday 23rd June 2025:

Manchester City v Al-Ain (02:00) [Group G]

Boca Juniors vs Benfica at 11pm should be fun. Everyone away up to bed in my house and time to enjoy. Wouldn’t mind some games at the World Cup being at that time, the night time ones won’t be for me though lol!

9 hours ago, Liam Sota said:

They’ve also booked doja cat and some others for halftime shows to try and make it like the Super Bowl. Could work but could easily be a disaster this whole thing

No surprise given it’s in a country that doesn’t like football in the whole!