FIFA formally confirmed the expansion of the field for the World Cup for clubs on Tuesday. The host for the next edition of the annual tournament has also been announced. FIFA formally confirmed expansion to 48 teams in World Cup
In December, FIFA president Gianni Infantino already announced that the World Cup for clubs will be overhauled from 2025, which incidentally led to some criticism. The expansion to 32 participants was originally planned for 2021, but was postponed to 2025 due to the consequences of the corona pandemic for the international playing calendar.
The FIFA Council on Tuesday gave a blow to increasing the field of participants from now seven to 32 participants in 2025. In the current format of the Club World Cup, only the continental champions and the champion of the host country participate.
This will therefore also be the case during the next edition of the tournament in December 2023. FIFA has designated Saudi Arabia, which has also applied for the 2030 World Cup, as the host country. The latter was the World Cup for clubs that was often played in the Middle East, in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. This year Morocco was the host country.
Amnesty International has criticises FIFA for sportswashing
In the aftermath, human rights organisation Amnesty International has criticised FIFA in extremely harsh terms for that choice.
“FIFA has once again misunderstood the horrific human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has been awarded this tournament with no regard for freedom of expression, discrimination or workers’ rights. FIFA is once again disregarding its own human rights policies and is complicit in a clear case of sportswashing,” said Steve Cockburn, head of the Department of Economic and Social Justice.
Sportswashing means that a regime uses a sporting event to sell itself as a much more pleasant institution than it actually is. The same criticism was heard a lot during the recent World Cup in Qatar, where thousands of workers literally worked themselves to death building the stadiums in what seemed like conditions.
Cockburn sees history repeating itself somewhat: “The authorities in Saudi Arabia have committed increasingly violent attacks on freedom of expression in recent months. Individuals have been given prison sentences of between 10 and 45 years simply for expressing their opinions peacefully online. Authorities also continue to execute for various crimes. Last year, 81 people were killed in one day, many of whom had been subjected to extremely unfair trials,” said the Amnesty International man.
