FIFA, Seeking $1 Billion for Club World Cup, Hires U.S. Firm to Find It

Last month, leaders from a group of elite European clubs, including Liverpool, Juventus and Barcelona, traveled to FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich. According to people familiar with their plans and a document summarizing their meeting obtained by The New York Times, they discussed the creation of a joint venture between FIFA and the European Club Association, a status that would elevate their interests above participating teams from soccer’s five other regional confederations. The talks centered on financial incentives, and the possibility of including as many as 12 European teams, four more than the current format, which caps European involvement at eight.

Reaching agreement for the tournament has been a fraught process. The project has fractured the relationship between FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, and the head of European soccer, Aleksander Ceferin, and faced opposition from the sport’s biggest clubs and leagues. FIFA wants its new tournament to eventually have a stature similar to the World Cup’s, an aspiration that would threaten the status of UEFA’s Champions League, which is currently the world’s richest club championship.

Attempts by FIFA to close an agreement for the tournament in 2018 with a group led by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank foundered when Infantino failed to get the support of the FIFA Council. At the time, several members of the FIFA board — led by Ceferin — complained of not being told enough information about the project. A FIFA analysis, reported by The Times in 2018, concluded the organization needed to raise $650 million to $1 billion for the tournament to be viable.

For Infantino, the stakes are high. As well as stoking tension with Ceferin, the discussions around new club arrangements — which would prioritize Europe’s involvement over clubs from the rest of the world — have also led to a breakdown in relations between Infantino and Alejandro Domínguez, the leader of the sport in South America and a longtime Infantino ally.

Domínguez, annoyed at being sidelined when South American teams were among a group that met with Infantino, signed an agreement to work on joint projects with UEFA’s Ceferin earlier this month. A few days later, FIFA scrapped a FIFA Council meeting set to be hosted by Domínguez in Asunción, Paraguay, where his organization, CONMEBOL, is based.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/sports/soccer/fifa-club-world-cup.html