Liverpool will miss out on the first staging of a new FIFA tournament which has already prompted plenty of backlash in England and Europe.
According to The Mirror, the Reds will be unable to qualify for the expanded Club World Cup in 2025 due to the criteria set out for participation in the tournament. Each Champions League winner from 2021 to 2024 will feature, so Chelsea and Manchester City have already guaranteed their eligibility.
The competition will see a maximum of two teams from one country unless there’s another English club crowned champions of Europe next year, and that won’t be Jurgen Klopp’s side due to them missing out on a top-four finish in the Premier League.
It means Liverpool will miss out on potential reported prize money of £150m from winning the proposed revamp of the global club event, which will feature 32 teams from across all six confederations, with 12 of those from UEFA.
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To not get the opportunity to claim the substantial prize money which’ll reportedly be on offer may seem rather disappointing, but in truth it mightn’t be all that catastrophic if the Reds aren’t part of the expanded Club World Cup in two years’ time.
As outlined by The Mirror, the proposed reformatting has already seen many English and European clubs voice understandable concerns regarding injury and burnout, with some seeing it as an attempt from FIFA to lessen the prestige of the UEFA Champions League.
The new format has yet to be confirmed, although it was initially expected that the full tournament will take place in the summer of 2025. One alternative which has been cited is to play some of the competition that year and complete it prior to the start of the 2026/27 European club season.
Frankly, the expanded Club World Cup would leave players at the highest level in Europe facing an even busier workload than they’re already trying to cope with, with Gianni Infantino’s pet project the latest example of how money is viewed as far more important than player welfare in the modern era.
As enjoyable as it was to see Liverpool winning the trophy in its current guise in 2019, Reds fans mightn’t be too put out by Klopp’s squad swerving the expanded version in two years’ time, given how many games they already have at club and international level.
We saw how leggy LFC looked at the start of last season following the marathon quadruple pursuit in 2021/22, and even the UEFA Nations League this summer will see the likes of Cody Gakpo and Virgil van Dijk get just three weeks off before starting preparations for 2023/24.
We shouldn’t be too sorry to see FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup going ahead in two years’ time without the Merseysiders involved.