50 million reasons why Barça and Atleti need to progress in the Champions League

With Napoli’s elimination last week in the Champions League Round of 16, Juventus became the latest team to qualify for the expanded 2025 FIFA Club World Cup or Mundial de Clubes FIFA as the new incarnation of the competition has been branded. The Turin side qualified through their confederations club ranking during a four-year period (2021-2024) and with an allocation of twelve slots open for UEFA club sides, just two spaces remain open with one automatically guaranteed to the winners of the 2024 Champions League final and the other on the line for a Spanish side with Atletico Madrid and FC Barcelona the two contenders.

The new competition has been the brainchild for some time now for FIFA boss Gianni Infantino who is very much a scholar from the ‘bigger is better’ school with the global governing body determined that this new tournament which will be staged every four years, is a roaring success. The 2025 edition will be staged in the US and played between 15 June and 13 July with the tournament set to offer FIFA a dry-run of major event organisation a year ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

The final UEFA place is a battle between Atletico Madrid and Barça with the spot set to be secured based upon UEFA club coefficient ranking and as things stand Stateside Cules will be disappointed to hear that Xavi’s men trail the Metropolitano based club currently. Atletico currently have 62 UEFA points against the 59 of Barça and the Catalan side need to secure a place in the Wembley final and hope that Atleti lose their quarter-final clash against Dortmund to have a glimmer of hope of making the first ever expanded Mundial de Clubes.

Financial bonanza

Participating at the new FIFA event generates global spotlight for the clubs question with a massive potential financial upside and in an era of ‘global brand expansion’ failure to be at the tournament would deliver a major economic blow for Atleti or Barça.

There is also the small matter of the qualification prize money with each club destined to receive $50 million for advancing. A quantity that puts the 20 million euro ($21M) prize money for winning the Champions League somewhat into the shade.