FIFA Club World Cup Format Guide

🧮 2025 Club World Cup format

An expanded World Club Cup begins In June with the scheduling designed to put a major tournament in place in seasons that don't include a World Cup or Euros.

In terms of the format of the tournament, it will be a familiar structure to many people who have followed FIFA World Cups from 1994 to 2022. There are 32 clubs in the finals tournament that have been drawn into eight groups of four.

Each team will play the other in a round robin format, six matches in each group in total, and the teams who finish in the top two positions in each group will win qualification through to the last 16.

From that point onwards it is a straight knockout tournament. This means that there will be a Last 16, Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals, and a Final. Unlike the World Cup though, there will not be a 3rd v 4th place play-off. This means that there will be 63 matches in total across the finals competition.

❓How did teams qualify for the Club World Cup?

There was no official qualification process. Each confederation has at least one representative club at the finals, the representatives were decided by the teams that had won that confederations’ premier club competition between 2021-2024. For example, the UEFA Champions League for Europe, or the Libertadores for South America.

In situations where multiple clubs won the titles in that period, or where there were more than four slots granted, a ranking system was established to ascertain the best performing clubs over that 2021-2024 period in those competitions. In UEFA’s case, the pre-existing UEFA Club Coefficient system was used.

🗺️ Which team is in which group?

The groups have been structured in a particular way to avoid certain teams being placed together.

There were four pots in the draw.

In the draw itself, all representatives from the same confederation were kept apart, except for UEFA clubs. Also, clubs from the same country were kept separate.

There are two pathways through the tournament as well. The winners of Groups A/C/E/G get paired with the runners-up of Groups B/D/F/H and vice versa on the other pathway.

🗓️ When does the Club World Cup start?

The first match of the tournament kicks off on 15th June at 1am UK time. Al Ahly and host county representatives Inter Miami will be the first match.

In a similar vein to the World Cup, there will be multiple matches per day, beginning with three matches, and then extending to four matches per day during the group stages. With the host country being the US, however, the UK will experience the majority of these matches in the evening, night, and very early morning.

The final takes place in East Rutherford at the famous MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on 13th July at 7pm UK time.

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