Morocco picked by FIFA to host Club World Cup in February
World governing body to launch expanded 32-team edition in 2025
Doha: Morocco was rewarded by FIFA on Friday with hosting rights for the next Club World Cup in February, with an expanded 32-team edition set to launch in 2025.
European champions Real Madrid, South American champions Flamengo and Seattle Sounders, the first CONCACAF Champions League winners from the United States, will play in the traditional seven-team tournament from February 1-11.
After Morocco’s inspiring run to the World Cup semi-finals in Qatar, the country will now stage the next global football event in six weeks’ time, FIFA’s ruling council decided.
It will be one of the last seven-team editions for continental champions with an expanded, month-long tournament planned to start in 2025.
Like a World Cup
FIFA president Gianni Infantino said the intended change was “making it really like a World Cup.”
In Morocco, Casablanca should stage games with the city set to provide two teams in the 10-day competition, which features continental champions from each of the six confederations in world football.
Wydad won Africa’s Champions League last season and also the Moroccan league. The place FIFA reserves for the host nation’s domestic champions should revert to league runners-up Raja. Both teams are based in Casablanca, where the 67,000-seat Stade Mohammed V is the likely venue for some of the eight Club World Cup games.
Morocco also hosted Club World Cups in 2013 and 2014, which were won by Bayern Munich and Real Madrid respectively
Only European and South American teams have won the Club World Cup since it was revived in the current format in 2005.
Expanded version
FIFA has long wanted to launch an expanded version with 24 or 32 teams in a tournament played in June.
A planned inaugural edition in 2021 in China was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic, though no tournament format had been agreed nor broadcasters or sponsors signed.
A 2025 launch is now planned, Infantino said, promising talks with stakeholders after the ruling council approved the principle Friday.
It could be hosted in the United States and serve as a test event for the 2026 World Cup, which is being hosted in the US, Canada and Mexico.