The new 32-team Club World Cup is taking shape, a tournament envisioned by FIFA president Gianni Infantino. The inaugural edition—promising to be filled with exciting matchups and high-stakes challenges on a global level—will take place in the summer of 2025 in the United States. It will serve as a sort of dress rehearsal for the FIFA World Cup, which will also be held in the U.S. exactly one year later.
As Calcio e Finanza has learned, on Saturday September 28th will be revealed the American stadiums that will host the matches of the participating teams . Of these teams, 12 will come from Europe, including the Italian clubs Inter and Juventus, which qualified based on their ranking from 2021-2024.
Club World Cup stadiums – FIFA also working on TV rights
This marks another step forward in organizing the tournament, which is starting to take concrete shape nine months ahead of kickoff. But it’s not just about the stadiums. The world football governing body is also working to finalize deals with broadcasters that will air the competition in Europe (including Italy) and the rest of the world.
The tender for television rights officially closed on Tuesday, but this is purely a formal deadline. In fact, FIFA is reviewing the offers received for broadcasting the matches, and a dedicated meeting is expected to take place next week without the need for a new call for bids to assign the rights.
The new Club World Cup will be held between June 15 and July 13, 2025. “These dates have been set to ensure that the tournament schedule aligns harmoniously with the international match calendar, to allow sufficient time between the final of the tournament and the start of the season in many national leagues globally, and considering that a minimum of three days’ rest between matches should be guaranteed to safeguard players’ well-being,” FIFA stated in a note.
The competition format will feature the following stages:
– A group stage consisting of eight groups of four teams each, playing in a single round-robin format. The top two teams from each group will advance to the round of 16.
– A knockout stage with single-elimination matches from the round of 16 to the final.
– No third-place playoff.