The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup made history as the first edition of the revamped, 32-team format — and before the confetti had even settled on Chelsea’s triumph, football’s governing body was already thinking bigger. With preliminary data confirming the tournament reached an estimated 2.7 billion viewers worldwide, FIFA is now pushing for a further expansion to 48 teams by 2029. The move would reshape global club football, draw in some of the sport’s most storied names, and unlock a new financial frontier — but it also raises serious questions about fixture congestion, player welfare, and who really stands to gain.
The 2025 Tournament: A Foundation Worth Building On
Before understanding where the Club World Cup is headed, it helps to appreciate what was actually achieved in the summer of 2025.
Held across 11 cities in the United States from June 14 to July 13, the inaugural 32-team edition delivered results that exceeded many expectations — at least on paper. Chelsea became the first world club champions under the new format, defeating Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 in the final, with Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson among the standout performers of the competition.
According to independent analysis conducted by Nielsen Sports, around 2.7 billion fans engaged with the tournament across all forms of media. In Brazil, where all four participating clubs advanced from the group stage, the competition was watched by more than 131 million people — roughly 62 percent of the country’s population. In Spain and Italy, approximately half the population tuned in. Globally, “FIFA Club World Cup” became the most searched sports term on Google during the tournament.
Attendance told a slightly different story. Around 2.5 million fans attended matches across the 11 host venues, but several group-stage games were plagued by empty stands. FIFA had to significantly cut ticket prices before the tournament began, dropping some from over €300 to under €50. Kick-off times scheduled during American working hours didn’t help, and the absence of some of Europe’s biggest clubs undeniably dented the draw for casual fans.
Chelsea’s prize for winning? Approximately £84 million — a figure that quickly became a rallying cry for the clubs that had been left out.
Why the Biggest Clubs Weren’t There — and Why That Matters
One of the most persistent criticisms of the 2025 edition was the glaring absence of clubs that, by any reasonable measure, rank among the best in the world. FC Barcelona, Liverpool, Arsenal, AC Milan, and Manchester United all failed to qualify, not because of poor form, but because of the structural restrictions FIFA had built into the qualification system.
For the 32-team tournament, UEFA received 12 European slots distributed as follows: four spots for Champions League winners between 2021 and 2024 (which included Chelsea and Real Madrid, the latter qualifying twice), plus eight additional places allocated on the basis of UEFA’s club coefficient rankings over that period. A cap of two clubs per nation applied to most countries.
The result was a system that rewarded historical Champions League success rather than recent domestic dominance. Liverpool, arguably Europe’s most consistent performer over the qualifying period, missed out entirely. Barcelona — one of the most commercially valuable clubs on the planet — watched from home. Arsenal, who had re-established themselves among Europe’s elite without winning the Champions League, were similarly excluded.
That exclusion had financial consequences that echoed loudly. Chelsea earned around £84 million from winning the tournament. PSG, as runners-up, received substantial prize money as well. Clubs that didn’t qualify — some with global fanbases running into hundreds of millions — got nothing and watched rivals strengthen their commercial position.
This financial disparity became the engine driving the expansion conversation.
The Push for 48 Teams: Who Wants It and Why
The pressure for expansion has come from multiple directions simultaneously, which is part of why it has gained traction so quickly.
The European Club Association’s Role
A significant recent development has been FIFA’s agreement to create a joint venture with the European Club Association (ECA), the lobbying group chaired by PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi that represents more than 700 European clubs. The ECA already operates a similar arrangement with UEFA over the Champions League and related competitions, and FIFA was reportedly impressed by how effectively the group had grown commercial revenues for those events — UEFA’s media and sponsorship income for club competitions has reportedly increased by around 25 percent for the next four-year cycle beginning in 2027.
The ECA’s involvement gives Europe’s biggest clubs a direct seat at the table in shaping the 2029 format. Their primary demand is straightforward: lift the per-country cap and expand European representation so that clubs like Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester City — who sit comfortably inside UEFA’s top eight by coefficient — cannot be excluded on structural grounds.
UEFA’s Strategic U-Turn
Perhaps the most consequential shift has been UEFA’s move from outright opposition to qualified support for the expansion.
UEFA had spent years resisting the Club World Cup’s growth, fearing it would cannibalize the Champions League’s prestige and eat into its commercial relationships. UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and FIFA president Gianni Infantino had clashed publicly and privately over the tournament’s scheduling and structure.
What changed UEFA’s calculation was reportedly the threat of an even worse alternative. Real Madrid and several other powerful clubs had floated the idea of staging the Club World Cup every two years rather than every four. For UEFA, a biennial tournament would be an existential threat to the Champions League’s standing. Backing a 48-team version held every four years — the lesser of two evils, as analysts have described it — became the strategic move.
The Guardian reported in February 2026 that UEFA was ready to formally support the 48-team proposal, a development described as a sign of improving relations between Ceferin and Infantino.
The Financial Picture: What’s at Stake
The numbers make the expansion case almost self-evidently powerful.
Chelsea’s £84 million prize for winning the 2025 tournament gave every major European club a benchmark to covet. For clubs of Barcelona’s or Manchester United’s scale — which operate with annual revenues in the €800 million to €900 million range — the Club World Cup represents not just prize money but a platform for commercial activation, sponsorship deals, merchandise sales, and global brand exposure in markets that domestic leagues struggle to penetrate.
The total prize fund for the 2025 tournament was approximately £740 million across all 32 participants. An expanded 48-team format, paired with greater commercial infrastructure through the ECA partnership, would likely push that figure significantly higher. FIFA’s initial challenges in securing commercial deals for the 2025 edition — Adidas, Coca-Cola, and Visa were reportedly hesitant early on — would likely diminish with a participant list featuring clubs like Barcelona and Liverpool.
DAZN secured global broadcasting rights for the 2025 and 2029 editions in a deal reported to be worth around $1 billion. A more commercially attractive team list for 2029 would strengthen that deal and make sublicensing to regional broadcasters significantly easier.
The solidarity fee question also remains unresolved. The six confederations have yet to agree on how the £185 million in solidarity payments from the 2025 edition should be distributed to clubs that didn’t participate but whose players appeared in the tournament. Resolving that dispute is a prerequisite before full attention can turn to 2029’s structure and format.
Which Clubs Could Benefit From Expansion
The proposed slot distribution for the 48-team format follows a logic modelled on FIFA’s own 2026 World Cup expansion. Under that framework:
- UEFA (Europe) would increase from 12 slots to 16, a gain of four places. This is where the biggest commercially impactful clubs — Barcelona, Liverpool, Arsenal, Juventus, AC Milan, Manchester United — would find a path back in. Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester City all currently rank within UEFA’s coefficient top eight, meaning they would be strong candidates under revised criteria.
- CONMEBOL (South America) would retain six spots with a potential seventh through a playoff. Brazil’s four-club representation in 2025 was a highlight of the tournament and would likely be maintained.
- CAF (Africa) could see its representation grow to six or seven clubs, a significant opportunity for Egyptian giants Al-Ahly and Zamalek, as well as South African, Moroccan, and Nigerian clubs.
- AFC (Asia), CONCACAF (North/Central America & Caribbean), and OFC (Oceania) would all see modest increases, though the precise numbers are still to be confirmed.
The per-country cap — currently two clubs for most nations — is expected to be revisited. Premier League clubs have lobbied particularly hard on this point. The restriction that kept Liverpool out in 2025 despite their quality and global standing was viewed as indefensible by English clubs and broadcasting partners alike.
Fan Reaction: Enthusiasm Meets Scepticism
Fan response to the expansion has been, predictably, split.
Among supporters of the historically excluded giants — Barcelona fans, Liverpool’s global following, Arsenal’s international supporter base — the prospect of qualifying for a 48-team Club World Cup is genuinely exciting. The 2025 tournament showed what the competition could look like with the best clubs present, and Chelsea’s run to the title created real sporting drama.
But some supporters and football purists have raised legitimate concerns. An already packed calendar — the Premier League season, Champions League, domestic cups, international breaks, and now the Club World Cup — is being stretched further. FIFPRO, the global players’ union, and the World Leagues Forum both filed legal complaints with the European Commission in the lead-up to the 2025 edition, accusing FIFA of abusing its dominant position and failing to adequately consult stakeholders. Those concerns have not disappeared.
There is also a philosophical question about dilution. The 2025 edition drew criticism for the inclusion of clubs like Red Bull Salzburg — a technically qualified but hardly globally celebrated participant — at the expense of serial Champions League contenders. Expanding to 48 teams does not automatically fix the qualification criteria, and fans from smaller football nations worry that their clubs will remain marginal participants in a tournament increasingly engineered for commercial appeal.
The Road to 2029: Key Questions Still to Resolve
While the broad direction of travel is clear, several critical decisions remain outstanding as of mid-2026.
Host nation: Brazil, England, Germany, Spain, Australia, Mexico, and Morocco have all expressed or indicated interest in hosting. Spain and Morocco — who are partnering on a bid for the 2030 FIFA World Cup — have emerged as early frontrunners for the 2029 edition, which would serve as a major logistical test run for that event.
Qualification criteria: The precise method for selecting Europe’s 16 clubs, and whether the per-country cap is scrapped entirely, remains to be decided. The ECA is pushing for criteria that guarantee the commercial heavyweights qualify; UEFA wants a system that still rewards Champions League performance.
Tournament format: A group stage with three or four clubs per group followed by knockout rounds is the most likely structure, mirroring the World Cup model. That would mean more matches and more complex logistics for participating clubs.
Frequency: The biennial tournament idea raised by some European clubs has not entirely gone away. FIFA has confirmed that all options remain under discussion, but for now, the four-year cycle appears to have prevailed.
Solidarity payments: Resolving the 2025 solidarity fee dispute is expected to be a prerequisite for serious 2029 planning to begin in earnest.
Note that the official access list for the 2029 tournament has not yet been announced by FIFA. The details above reflect ongoing discussions and reported proposals and may continue to evolve as negotiations progress.
Conclusion
The FIFA Club World Cup’s expansion to 48 teams is no longer a speculative idea — it is the direction both FIFA and UEFA have aligned behind, driven by commercial logic, political pragmatism, and the genuine lessons of the 2025 inaugural edition.
Chelsea’s triumph showed what the tournament can be. The 2.7 billion viewers who tuned in showed what the appetite exists for. The absence of Barcelona, Liverpool, and Manchester United showed the obvious gap in credibility that a 16-team European allocation would go a long way to filling.
The harder questions — about player welfare, calendar congestion, and whether a 48-team tournament can maintain genuine sporting quality throughout — will define how the 2029 edition is remembered. FIFA’s challenge is to build a competition that genuinely crowns the world’s best club, not simply the most commercially convenient lineup. If they get the balance right, the Club World Cup could become one of football’s most compelling events. If they don’t, the grumbles from players, leagues, and fans will grow considerably louder.
