FIFA’s USA Club World Cup project in disarray: no stadiums, sponsorships or schedule

It turns out that FIFA President Gianni Infantino might be getting as little sleep as his drained expression suggests. Reports from Italian media outlet Gazetta dello Sport say that football’s organising body are yet to agree on a plethora of, from the outside, what one might deem ‘fundamental aspects’ of its revamped Club World Cup, set to be held in the United States of America next year.

Filippo Ricci, based in Madrid, claimed quite worryingly that the only thing locked in regarding the championship are the dates: everything else is yet to be sorted, including where he’s getting the money from. “There is a lack of venues, a lack of two more teams and a lack of money”, he writes, adding that “it is still without foundations”, while also commenting that various Italian teams are already on “high alert”.

“The day before yesterday” Ricci goes one, “the deadlines for submitting bids for TV rights for half the world - including the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa - all expired. Nobody showed up”. This led to an emergency meeting organised by a red-faced Mr Infantino, presumably a mixture of anger and confusion at how nobody was willing to bid millions to show a tournament just months away without stadiums, cities or a full list of teams.

There are also no sponsors. In the same way as with the still-for-sale TV rights, it appears that companies the world over are keeping their hands in their pocket instead of extending them to shake with Infantino over sticking logos around the place. Clubs themselves aren’t happy with the number of games and Rodri, who has been very vocal in his opinions on playing too much football, recently fell to an ACL injury that will unfortunately see him miss this sponsor-less, stadium-less tournament in, erm... the United States still want it, right?

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The new Club World Cup will also coincide with the Under-21 European Championship (June 12-July 5) and the CONCACAF Gold Cup (June 14-July 7), something which has put off players set to appear in these tournaments. Infantino’s pressing the emergency eject button, but there isn’t one of them either.

Gianni Infantino has been telling us he lives in a mansion that in reality is a floppy cardboard stand-in for a house, an empty wild-west tavern with just the dusty facade facing us but a great big hole in the back, filled with foam and haystacks. The FIFA President promised us a trophy with a new meaning in a sparkly competition that crowned the best team in the world. What ever will we do without it? Don’t worry, Gianni, nobody really cares anyway.