FIFA Club World Cup explained: Who's playing, how teams qualified, schedule, prize money, odds, more

Published on Jun 11, 2025

In principle there ought to be nothing particularly contentious about a competition to decide the best club side in the world. Between 1960 and 2004 the champions of Europe and South America faced off for bragging rights, from then on the rest of the planet got to take part on an annual basis. Switching the tournament to a quadrennial cycle has its complications, but the principle that underlies it is still solid. This is the world's global game. You cannot just name yourself world champions because you won your domestic league (ahem, MLB and NBA). Such a title must be won on the field.

And yet the path to the Club World Cup has been so contentious, so riven with cynicism that it is hard to see how this tournament can engender any sort of positivity from anyone beyond Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president so enamored with his new trophy he put his name on it... twice, and the clubs who are splitting $1 billion. Alongside Infantino's signature lies a slogan that does not lack for optimism. It proclaims "a new age. The golden era of club football: the era of the FIFA Club World Cup."

It is hard to see that dawning on Saturday, when Inter Miami host Al Ahly at Hard Rock Stadium in front of... some fans. From there the competition follows a course familiar to anyone who has followed the last seven international World Cups, 32 teams split across eight groups, from which 16 emerge into a straight knockout competition.

How did CWC teams qualify?

For half of the field, their passage to the Club World Cup was fairly orthodox. They won their respective continental competitions between 2021 and 2024 so they get to move up to the global stage. Only one such team is missing with FIFA concluding that 2023 CONCACAF Champions League winners Club Leon would not be able to play in the same competition as Pachuca, with whom they share owners. A play off match between Los Angeles FC, beaten in the 2023 final, and Club America, the best performing North American side between 2021 and 2024 who had not won the competition, saw the former emerge victorious.

Only one federation is not guaranteed the chance to send all its champions. One spot is reserved for Oceania, set aside for its best performing Champions League winner. In each of the last three years that has been been Auckland City so that is at least straightforward.

The rest of the field is made up of the best performing non-champions from each federation. Asia has sent one such side while Africa, where Al-Ahly has won three of the last four CAF Champions Leagues, has added two in Esperance de Tunis and Mamelodi Sundowns.

In Europe and South America the picture is more complicated. In March 2023 the FIFA Council agreed that each nation would be limited to two representatives at the Club World Cup unless each team were champions of their respective confederation. Brazilian sides have won each of the last four Copa Libertadores and so despite Atletico Mineiro reaching a final and semifinal since 2021 they missed out in favor of Argentina's River Plate and Boca Juniors.

In England, meanwhile, Liverpool were locked out when Manchester City joined Chelsea as Champions League winners and they failed to qualify for the 2023-24 tournament. Barcelona too accrued more ranking points than the likes of Benfica and Juventus but not than 2024 champions Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid.

Those additional spots make 31. As in 2023 a spot was left open for the host nation. On that occasion it had been afforded to the league champions Al-Ittihad. This time round, however, the USA will be represented not by the winners of the MLS Cup but by Inter Miami, who had the best regular season record in last year's MLS before being dumped out of the playoffs in the first round. On their roster? Perhaps the biggest name in world football for a generation, Lionel Messi. FIFA announced that the Supporters Shield winner would represent the host nation after the end of the regular season but before the playoffs, reasoning that they wished for the representative to come from league play and not knockout football. Every other one of the 32 qualified on the basis of their achievements in knockout competitions.

The teams and the stars

The field delivers plenty of stories, from the chance for Paris Saint-Germain to reassert their dominance over the club game to the wonders of Auckland City, the amateur side who dominate Oceanian club football, but who probably have not run into anyone from Fiji or New Caledonia on Harry Kane's level. South American sides were always entranced by past iterations of this competition, could Palmeiras or River Plate continue their continent's rich traditions of giving the Europeans a bloody nose? As for meetings between free-spending Al-Hilal and Real Madrid, perhaps Manchester City too, well it's good to cater to those who sit in the middle of the geopolitics-soccer fandom Venn diagram.

There is certainly something curious about seeing Chelsea heading to the USA with so few of those players who won the 2021 Champions League. That is to say nothing of the European clubs that are padding out the field. FIFA's decision to limit representatives opened the door to the likes of Porto and Red Bull Salzburg, the latter of whom won precisely zero Champions League knockout games over the four year cycle.

Club World Cup groups

Group A: Palmeiras (BRA), Porto (PRT), Al Ahly (EGY), Inter Miami (USA)
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain (FRA), Atletico Madrid (ESP), Botafogo (BRA), Seattle Sounders (USA)
Group C: Bayern Munich (DEU), Auckland City (NZL), Boca Juniors (ARG), Benfica (PRT)
Group D: Flamengo (BRA), Esperance de Tunis (TUN), Chelsea (GBR), Los Angeles FC (USA)
Group E: River Plate (ARG), Urawa Red Diamonds (JPN), Monterrey (MEX), Inter (ITA)
Group F: Fluminense (BRA), Borussia Dortmund (DEU), Ulsan HD (KOR), Mamelodi Sundowns (ZAF)
Group G: Manchester City (GBR), Wydad AC (MAR), Al Ain (UAE), Juventus (ITA)
Group H: Real Madrid (ESP), Al-Hilal (KSA), Pachuca (MEX), Red Bull Salzburg (AUT)

Despite opening the door to lesser European sides, this appears to be a tournament enamored with star power. If the FIFA president wasn't finding ways to justify Messi's presence he was pushing the idea that Cristiano Ronaldo would be joining him. On May 24 Infantino told streamer iShowSpeed -- very normal state of affairs this -- that the 40-year-old was in talks over a move to one of the clubs competing in the competition. PIF, meanwhile, were looking to leverage their ownership of Saudi Arabia's top teams and pushing to convince Ronaldo to extend with Al-Nassr and immediately join Al-Hilal on loan. Ronaldo was unmoved, setting the stage for a chaotic run up to the pre-Club World Cup transfer window on June 10 in which Al-Hilal held dialogue with several clubs across the Pro League, trying to loan their stars after striking out on the likes of Bruno Fernandes and Victor Osimhen.

They were not the only club to strengthen with a view to this competition. Manchester City accelerated their summer business, getting Ryan Ait-Nouri, Tijani Reijnders and Rayan Cherki early while both Bayern Munich and Real Madrid paid a fee to secure their free agent acquisitions several weeks early. In the case of the latter, it is costing them over $11 million for a few extra weeks of Trent Alexander-Arnold.

The $1bn competition -- who's paying for it?

That might seem an exorbitant fee for a competition usually treated with indifference by European clubs, for whom the Champions League is the greatest prize. Indeed, a year ago then Real Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti was suggesting his club might reject the invitation to a tournament that he suggested would only be worth 20 million. He predicted others would also decline to take part.

What changed? Money, a lot of it. In what Infantino precisely termed "the biggest-ever prize money for a football tournament comprising a seven-match group stage and playoff format", the winners of the Club World Cup stand to earn up to $125 million for a month's work stateside. That is slightly greater than the estimated return for those clubs who reached the quarterfinals of this season's Champions League. In effect for a team such as Real Madrid, this is a chance to double their money for international games.

Nearly half of the $1 billion prize pot will be handed out based on sporting success with the finalists banking $30 million in merit payments for that game. It is $21 million for reaching the semifinals, $13.13 million for the quarterfinals. Even a point in the group stage would earn a team $1 million.

Club World Cup selected odds

Winner: PSG (+400), Real Madrid (+400), Man City (+500), Bayern Munich (+650), Chelsea (+1000), Atletico Madrid (+1400), Inter (+1400), Juventus (+2500), Borussia Dortmund (+2500), Porto (+3300), Palmeiras (+3300), Flamengo (+3300), Inter Miami (+6600), Seattle Sounders (+10000), Los Angeles FC (+10000)

Top scorer: Kylian Mbappe (+450), Erling Haaland (+500), Harry Kane (+550), Ousmane Dembele (+1000), Serhou Guirassy (+1200), Lionel Messi (+2000)

Golden Ball: Kylian Mbappe (+350), Vinicius Junior (+500), Ousmane Dembele (+550), Desire Doue (+800), Erling Haaland (+1200), Lionel Messi (+1800), Rodri (+2000), Franco Mastantuono (+5000), Trent Alexander-Arnold (+8000)

Combine that with a participation pool and the rewards are vast. That latter section of $525 million sees every club afforded a minimum fee for participating based on sporting criteria. For Chelsea and Manchester City that number is $38.19 million, with $15.21 million for South American representatives, $9.55 million for North America, Africa and Asia and $3.58 million to Auckland City, whose annual budget in 2021 was a little over half a million dollars.

Such generous prize money comes from the $1 billion broadcast deal FIFA signed with DAZN in February after failing to secure interest from elsewhere. Saudi Arabia's Surj Sports Investment subsequently bought a stake in the broadcaster, reportedly paying $1 billion for 10 percent of the company. Surj is part of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, PIF, who own Al-Hilal.

The wealth on offer is already proving to be contentious. At the time of writing MLS and its players' association remain locked in talks over what share of the prize money should go to players. Seattle Sounders thrust the issue into the limelight on June 1, wearing shirts that said "Club World Cash Grab" and "Fair Share Now."

For FIFA, meanwhile, the Club World Cup offers a chance to close the financial gap to UEFA. Between 2019 and 2022 world football's governing body raised $7.57 billion, around 90 percent of which could be said to be linked to the World Cup through broadcast, marketing, licensing, hospitality and ticket sales. In a similar timescale UEFA made $19 billion. Both organisations largely redistribute their earnings to their members.

Amateur soccer players with regular full-time jobs prepare to take on elite talent at FIFA Club World Cup

Chuck Booth

For FIFA that will now include clubs, several of whom will be able to shift the goalposts in their leagues. In 2022 Boca Juniors earned $500,000 for winning the Primeira Division. Knock a few past Auckland City and they will quadruple that. Meanwhile their opponents will have plenty to pay salaries that are said to be capped at $90 a week.

What does the rest of the game think?

The competition is warping the game beyond the balance sheets too. After all, the most consistent complaint levelled at the Club World Cup has been the workload placed on top players. Just weeks before his anterior cruciate ligament was torn, Ballon d'Or winner Rodri said that he believed players were close to strike action. His team mate Manuel Akanji laid out much the same concerns. "Let's say we win the league or cup," he said in September, "then go to the final of the Club World Cup; the Community Shield is three weeks after. So, when do we have holidays?"

According to players union FIFPRO, Federico Valverde has played 5,877 minutes across 64 games since the start of August with over 65,000 miles of travel in the same period. If Real Madrid were to make a run to the final his minutes count could clear 6,500 in the space of a year.

That number could have been even higher had Uruguay boss Marcelo Bielsa not opted to do without Valverde for the penultimate round of World Cup qualifying in South America. FIFA has long been the great bulwark in defense of the international game, no wonder given where its revenue comes from. Infantino's desire for a slice of the club pie changes that and radically affects international managers. They could follow the lead of Norway's Stale Solbakken, playing Erling Haaland whatever the consequences for the Club World Cup a few days later. After all he "won't watch a second of it," he said after his country's 1-0 win over Estonia.

That was not an option available to Mauricio Pochettino, whose final competitive preparation for next summer's World Cup comes at the Gold Cup. He has not been able to call on Timothy Weah, Weston McKennie and Giovanni Reyna as his side slump to a four game losing streak. "That is the circumstance that we have and we need to adapt," he said of the competition.

Will it be a success?

Meanwhile, it would be fair to say that the competition is yet to capture the attention of the US soccer community. The Athletic reported on June 4 that FIFA were slashing the price of tickets, which had been launched under a dynamic pricing model where cost reflects demands, in a bid to fill seats for the tournament. At the time of writing Ticketmaster shows widespread availability for the opening game of the competition, where Messi's Inter Miami take on Al-Ahly, with tickets available for $74. Want to snag a spot at Benfica vs. Auckland City? It's yours for as little as $18.

Even some of the marquee matchups of the league phase are not drawing punters. A ticket to the clash between European champions Paris Saint-Germain and Atletico Madrid at Pasadena's Rose Bowl will set you back $80 and you might just have space to stretch out. Ticketmaster's website is currently showing availability for every league phase game.

Demand appears to be higher for the knockout stages and FIFA will hope that the tournament catches fire by then, both to draw in the match-going fans and to build a worldwide broadcast network. Speaking on Thursday, Infantino was bullish on the prospects of sold-out stadiums, particularly for the opener.

"Hard Rock will be full," he said. "We will have a great atmosphere. It will be historic. It'll be two historic teams for very different reasons. The stadium will be full.

"We got great attention from sponsors and broadcasters, so that when it comes to revenues, everything is perfectly secured. But I'm sure that all those who will come, and there are still tickets available, but many will go out these days."

The on field action might at least draw some excitement, landing at an intriguing point in the calendar. As should be apparent above, Europe's best and the rest from the continent arrive battered and bruised after seasons that ran beyond 50 games for many. The South Americans are in the middle of their domestic season; their players should be in peak physical condition. A flourishing Brazilian league offers dark horses in the likes of Palmeiras, who have had the financial muscle to bring Vitor Roque and Facundo Torres back to the South American game at an age where most of their contemporaries are Europe-bound. Estevao Willian, who will join Chelsea after the tournament, could be the sort of breakout star of the summer that catches the worldwide imagination.

Alternatively, that might come from an MLS club. LA FC, who beat Club America in a playoff last month to secure their participation, have found an encouraging vein of form in recent weeks and have potential matchwinners in Denis Bouanga and Olivier Giroud. Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal might have struck out in their attempts to add superstar names to the roster of new coach Simone Inzaghi, but Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Joao Cancelo and Marcos Leonardo is enough talent to be getting on with.

A few unfamiliar teams making deep runs could certainly capture the attention of the wider world but the chances look slim. According to Opta only three teams from outside Europe -- Palmeiras, Al-Hilal and Flamengo -- have a better than 50:50 chance of getting out of their groups. None are better than long shots of reaching quarter finals that could well be very familiar to those with a passing familiarity to the Champions League.

Will that matter? Will this become the summer when football is all too much? Infantino is hoping not and that, given the prize money on offer, this will certainly be a "golden era" for a select few.

Club World Cup fixtures Group stage

All times ET, matches on DAZN (try for free)

Saturday, June 14