FIFA no longer hides it.
When you desperately need a big broadcast deal and some major American sponsors in the coming months, the time for subtlety is over.
Lionel Messi Inter Miami have qualified – the word qualified doing more heavy lifting than a skinflint picking up the bar tab after a big night – for next summer’s new, massively expanded Club World Cup, which will play in the United States.
How and why to have Lionel Messi Have Inter Miami been deemed worthy of being among the top 32 football clubs in the world? Why, by winning the 2024 Supporters’ Shield in MLS, of course!
And where will the first match of next summer’s tournament take place? In Miami, of course!
Inter Miami celebrates winning the Supporters’ Shield (Chris Arjoon/AFP via Getty Images)
If this all sounds way too convenient, well, that’s because it is. Miami and Messi being involved in a global tournament that desperately needs to be a financial success from the get-go makes sense for FIFA, but does it make sense for normal people?
By offering a place to Miami via the Supporters’ Shield, which is the trophy (OK, shield) awarded to the MLS team with the best record over the regular season (but before the big end-of-season Cup play-offs MLS does not decide the champions), FIFA has highlighted the legitimacy and authenticity of the new Club World Cup. Yes, leave your faces stunned.
To be fair to Miami, they just broke the MLS record for most points won in the regular season, with 74 in 34 matches, a total reached on the final day of the campaign when they beat the New England Revolution 6-2 with a goal from Messi. an 11-minute hat-trick off the bench and Luis Suarez scoring twice.
This is Miami’s first MLS trophy since joining the league as an expansion team in 2020, after winning the Leagues Cup (a tournament for MLS and Liga MX teams , the top division of Mexican club football) last year.
“You have shown that in the United States you are still the best club on the pitch,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who was on the Miami pitch for the big Supporters’ Shield celebrations. “Therefore, I am proud to announce that as one of the best clubs in the world, you are deserved participants in the new 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.”
Could the first new-look Club World Cup have taken place in the United States without Messi? (Chris Arjoon/AFP via Getty Images)
Whether or not you think Miami should be included in the tournament, there are two obvious points to take issue with in these quotes.
- Miami has not proven that it is “consistently the best club” in the United States. They definitely proved themselves to be the best club in the MLS Eastern Conference, which is only half of the United States (and a few bits of Canada). Yes, they have gone unbeaten in their six league matches this season against Western Conference teams, but they have only won three of them. It’s a bit like saying Celtic proved they were the best team in the UK by winning the Scottish title.
- “One of the best clubs in the world”, Gianni, really? They may have aged legends playing for them, but if you can’t guarantee they’ll beat, say, Crystal Palace tomorrow in a one-off draw, they won’t get that nickname.
Miami becomes the 31st club to reach the Club World Cup and the only one to qualify solely through a domestic championship. So far, the other 30 have participated in continent-wide competitions or rankings between teams from said continent. In simple terms, either win a confederation tournament or have a consistently good record in competitions involving teams from multiple nations.
Africa (via the CAF Champions League) has four teams that will participate in the Club World Cup, as does Asia (AFC Champions League). Europe has 12 (UEFA Champions League), the North and Central America and Caribbean region has four via the CONCACAF Champions League, South America (CONMEBOL Libertadores) has five and there are one from OFC via the continental ranking, namely Auckland City, and one from the host country, which is Miami.
How will the 32nd and final team qualify? Will FIFA give it to Disney+ All Stars? Maybe a Mohammed bin Salman Select XI?
Well no, it will be the champion of the Copa Libertadores 2024, who will join its winners from 2021 (Palmeiras), 2022 (Flamengo), 2023 (Fluminense) and the two highest ranked clubs in the CONMEBOL confederation, River Plate and Boca Juniors . GOOD. It works.
Even though the same criteria means Chelsea qualify because they won the 2021 Champions League final, a triumph that so long ago involved Roman Abramovich, Thomas Tuchel (there are four Chelsea managers), Timo Werner and Olivier Giroud, there is validation because they won. The biggest tournament in Europe.
And even if the ranking criteria means that Austrians Red Bull Salzburg, who lost their first two Champions League matches this season 3-0 and 4-0, somehow sneak through although ‘They have only progressed past the Champions League group stage on one occasion in the last four. years, once again, so be it. Be yourself, FIFA.
This is not a criticism of the idea of a team from the host country being allocated a place in the competition. Far from it. There should being a home team in the tournament, just as the host nation is rightly assured of a place in the World Cup. FIFA couldn’t guarantee there would be a local team through CONCACAF (it turns out the Seattle Sounders are involved in winning the Confederation Champions Cup in 2022), so state up front that an American team would be there is not a problem. . Except they only announced yesterday that the winning Supporters’ Shield team would qualify.
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How else should they have done it? A generic place to guarantee some American involvement would not have been unreasonable at all.
This is common in tennis, where top players who may not have a high enough ranking to reach one of the four Grand Sam events for whatever reason, such as a long-term injury, may be assigned a place at Wimbledon or the US Open. Goran Ivanisevic once won Wimbledon as a wildcard and Andy Murray and countless Britons have been awarded places at the London tournament over the years. This increases attendance and television viewing figures.
Placing Miami in the Club World Cup for the same reason, as a wildcard that would draw bigger attendances and draw more eyes to perhaps watch Messi against old foes Real Madrid or his old mentor Barcelona, Pep Guardiola and Manchester City, wouldn’t feel particularly wrong.
But by making up the rules head-on and giving the Supporters’ Shield team a spot instead of the winners of the MLS Cup (which Miami could well win in early December) or perhaps having a one-off match between the winners of the Shield and the Cup. if they are different, you expose yourself to ridicule. Especially since you called it the “largest, most inclusive and merit-based global club competition” that has ever existed.
A competition that is already struggling for its respectability has just suffered another blow to its reputation.
(Top photos: Lionel Messi and Gianni Infantino; Getty Images)