Back in March — missed that I guess — FIFA
announced that they have decided to revamp the
exceedingly useless Club World Cup competition
by also scrapping the equally useless
Confederations Cup and creating an even bigger
mess.
Under the new format, 24 (club) teams will take
part in a quadrennial event, to be played the year
before each World Cup (i.e. when the
Confederations Cup used to be held).
In replacing the annual format for the Club World
Cup, the competition will expand to include 8
teams from Europe, 6 teams from South
America, and the rest divided up between Asia,
Africa, and North America. Eight groups of 3
teams each would then lead to a 8-team single
elimination knockout bracket.
In a way, it now lives up to its name much
better, literally a “World Cup” for “Club” teams.
The qualifiers from Europe will be the winners of
the Champions League and Europa League from
the preceding four years. So that means Real
Madrid (CL ‘18), Liverpool (CL ‘19), Atlético
Madrid (EL ‘18) and Chelsea (EL ‘19) have
already qualified!
That’s assuming we don’t decide to boycott the
competition, as the European Club Assocation
(ECA) have urged .
While it’s unclear when exactly this competition
would take place (summer, presumably?), or how
repeat winners of the continental competitions
would be handled, FIFA have reportedly decided
to give the inaugural tournament of the revamped
Club World Cup to China.
No official
announcement has been made yet, but the New
York Times got the down low on Friday’s vote.
Young-po Reporters 