Premier League fears Fifa Club World Cup expansion would be Super League by the back door

Premier League clubs have discussed their fears that the new format for the Fifa Club World Cup (FCWC), which expands to become a 32-team tournament in 2025, could become a “European Super League by the back door”.

Fifa agreed plans for the new competition at its congress in Rwanda this March, and although the governing body has announced 12 Uefa qualification places in the competition, it has not said definitively how those places might be earned. At the Premier League shareholders’ meeting on Thursday in London, clubs asked for the details on FCWC qualification in Europe.

Thus far Fifa has said that it will be the four Champions League winners in the four years leading up to 2025 – with Chelsea and Real Madrid already assured of a place – and then the top eight-ranked clubs excluding those already qualified. There will be a cap of two clubs per country unless that country has more than two Champions League winners in the four-year period.

The question will be how exactly Uefa ranks the additional clubs. Either way, the feeling among Premier League clubs is that the system will reward the big clubs who are already perennial Champions League participants and make it through into the knockout rounds each season, thus deepening the financial divide between the elite and the rest.

The FCWC expansion cleared its final hurdle when the powerful European Club Association (ECA) signed a memorandum of understanding with Fifa over the future world football calendar on Monday. But there are clubs outside the big six in the Premier League who fear that the ECA does not represent their concerns.

A significant fear is that Fifa’s incursion into the club game will see it chasing the broadcast revenue that would otherwise be earned by domestic leagues, and in particular the Premier League. Additional earnings for clubs playing in the FCWC, as well as the expanded Uefa Champions League, which will grow from six group games to 10 in 2024, will make the biggest and the wealthiest even wealthier than domestic rivals who do not play in Uefa and Fifa competitions.

There is a strong belief that the appetite for broadcasters to pay for live rights is finite and more international club competitions will simply chip value away from domestic league rights. The biggest clubs in Europe could eventually come to earn more from Fifa and Uefa competitions than they do from domestic league and cups

Fifa has been looking at ways of earning greater revenue outside of its quadrennial World Cup finals. It first proposed a biennial World Cup finals with Arsène Wenger as the front man, a project that was widely regarded to be a stalking horse for the new expanded FCWC. That was abandoned by Fifa president Gianni Infantino once he had enough support for an expanded FCWC. The battle to control the calendar of word football is fundamental to controlling its wealth.

Fifa was emboldened to pursue plans for the FCWC by the advocate-general advice to the European Court of Justice in December, in the Super League case pursued by the three remaining rebel clubs. Fifa’s interpretation of that ruling was that it had jurisdiction to set up the competition. In its agreement with the ECA it is expected that the two organisations will establish a joint venture to control the revenue of the new FCWC.

The body representing domestic leagues around the world, and chaired by Premier League chief executive Richard Masters, has described the FCWC expansion as having “damaging consequences for the football economy and player welfare”. The World Leagues Forum said Fifa announced the proposals without consultation. The Uefa Congress takes place in Lisbon this week.