For over a century, the football chiefs have promised a true global club championship, but the journey has not been easy. And so, with FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup finally upon us, the competition is already under attack by some of the sport’s most influential voices. Why are long-held dreams running up against intense criticism at the moment the dream at last becomes reality?
1909 to 2025: How a century of world club aspirations led us to this controversial tournament
The concept of a world club competition is not new. It started in 1909 with the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy, a mini-tournament between English, Italian, German, and Swiss clubs. Years later, FIFA created the Intercontinental Cup in 1960, matching Europe’s and South America’s finest against one another. But for most of the 20th century, a genuine world event was out of the question, with expansion plans thwarted and domestic derbies taking center stage.
Straight-out support for a World Club Cup took until the late 2010s. In 2016, FIFA president Gianni Infantino floated a 24-team tournament, hoping to build a spectacle on a par with the World Cup itself. Logistical challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic, and opposition from clubs and leagues had stalled it. Now, in June 2025, FIFA rolled out a 32-team Club World Cup, keeping an undertaking from a hundred years ago at last—but not without rancor.
This is how the extended Club World Cup is provoking a row among the kings of football
The new format is intended to unite champions from all continents, providing a platform for clubs previously excluded from the world’s limelight. But the competition’s size and timing have been widely denounced. The packed football calendar does not leave much space for a tournament of this magnitude, much is argued, and at the cost of player welfare for the interests of business.
La Liga president Javier Tebas: If you believe that this constitutes progress, rethink
Javier Tebas, the president of Spain’s premier football league, La Liga, has been perhaps the most vocal critic of FIFA’s proposed expansion of the Club World Cup. According to him, the new system is “totally absurd” because it disrupts the balance of domestic competition and disproportionately imposes an undue burden on clubs and players. Inside World Football published that Tebas was quoted as saying,
It is totally absurd to have a Club World Cup with 32 clubs.”
Tebas’s concerns are echoed by many in the footballing fraternity, who fear the expanded tournament will disrupt established leagues and water down the value of existing tournaments. As president of La Liga, Tebas has the responsibility of representing Spanish clubs, some of which already have hectic schedules.
“We will not allow FIFA to destroy our competitions,” he declared (ESPN).
A century-old dream meets modern-day resistance
Tebas’s uncompromising stance has been a thorn in FIFA’s flesh, but one that also represents the broader debate surrounding the future of the game. And as the football world watches, what is decided at this enlarged tournament could be a blueprint for the future of global club competitions for decades to come. Will the Club World Cup become a favorite global event, or will it further divide football’s governing bodies from the leagues that drive the sport week in, week out?
The introduction of the 32-team Club World Cup in 2025 is the culmination of over 100 years of dreams, negotiations, and promises broken. And as the tournament is finally unveiled, it is met with strong opposition from those who see the price as too steep. The next few months will tell if FIFA’s dream can bring the football world together—or if the dream will remain as divisive as ever.
