REAL MADRID
Ancelotti’s doubts over FIFA’s Club World Cup and Intercontinental Cup
Head coach Carlo Ancelotti shared the club’s concerns regarding the two tournaments with concrete details still to be confirmed by FIFA.
Carlo Ancelotti held a press conference on Saturday ahead of Real Madrid’s league opener against Mallorca at Son Moix which gets underway at 3:30 pm (ET) on Sunday. The Italian coach touched on several topics: Mbappé, Rodrygo, the new league campaign and the packed 2024-25 season calendar with seven titles at stake and which could take the team into mid July (2025).
Today was not the first time Ancelotti has spoken about the new expanded 32 team FIFA Club World Cup, which will take place between June 15 and July 13 in the United States with a format similar to that of the World Cup.
Speaking to Italian outlet Il Giornale towards the end of the 2023-34 season, Ancelotti stated: “FIFA forgets that players and clubs will not participate. Like us, others will reject the invitation,” said the Italian although he subsequently stated that he was misquoted and Real Madrid quickly issued a statement claiming that at no time had they considered not participating in the competition.
It is true that there are concerns within the club though in terms of the organisation for the proposed FIFA Mundial de Clubes as the tournament will be officially known. At present no host cities, venues or broadcast deals have been confirmed and today Ancelotti affirmed that Real Madrid have not been given any further details about the tournament with the same applying to December’s planned FIFA Intercontinental Cup.
A septuple up for grabs
With the advent of the expanded 32 team Club World Cup, FIFA have created a revised Intercontinental Cup with the planned annual competition set to take place in December 2024 this year and will feature the club champions of the six FIFA confederations with the 2023-24 Champions of Europe (Real Madrid) getting a bye to the final with the venue for the competition yet to be announced.
The competition will run from 14-18 with Real Madrid scheduled to play in the 18 December final and early suggestions point to the games taking place in Saudi Arabia or Qatar.
Ancelotti closed his observation of winning seven trophies this season concluding with: “We still don’t know how many competitions we should play, there are two that are not clear. For now things are not yet organised... There are supposed to be seven, but we don’t know when or how.”