The FIFA President Gianni Infantino said stadiums with roofs will be used to ease concerns over severe weather at the 2026 Men’s World Cup after criticism over players being exposed to extreme heat during the Club World Cup in the United States.
‘ESPN’ stated that Cole Palmer (winger)-inspired the Chelsea F.C. (UK) to a shock 3-0 FIFA Club World Cup™ Final win against the Paris Saint-Germain (France) in New Jersey (US) as the Premier League side became the first winners of the new-look, expanded 32-team tournament. The soccer spectacle took place on July 13th at the 82,500-capacity MetLife Stadium in Rutherford, New Jersey.
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup™, also marketed as the FIFA Club World Cup 25™, was the 21st edition and the first of the expanded FIFA Club World Cup™, an international club soccer competition organized by the FIFA. The tournament was played in the United States from June 14th-July 13th, 2025. It comprised 32 teams under an expanded format.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup™, marketed as the FIFA World Cup 26™, will be the 23rd FIFA World Cup™, the quadrennial international Men’s soccer championship contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The tournament will take place from June 11th-July 19th, 2026. It will be jointly hosted by 16 Cities in three North American countries. The main host country of the matches is the United States while Canada and Mexico will be the auxiliary hosts. The tournament will be the first to be hosted by three nations.
‘ESPN’ further stated that the Semifinal between the Premier League team Chelsea F.C. and the Brazilian sports club Fluminense FC at the MetLife Stadium on July 8th saw the temperature rise to 96 degrees Fahrenheit (35.5 degrees Celsius) at kickoff while the global players’ union – the International Federation of Professional Footballers (FIFPRO – the worldwide representative organization for 65,000 professional footballers) – has said that three games during the tournament should have been delayed or postponed due to the excessive heat.
The Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernández has urged FIFA to reassess the schedule for next year’s World Cup saying the heat made him “dizzy” and was “very dangerous”.
But with the thunderstorms also leading to some games being suspended for long periods Infantino said that more games at the 2026 World Cup will now be staged in covered stadiums – venues in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Vancouver have roofs and air-conditioning – to mitigate against the daytime heat and climate issues.
He told newsmen at a media conference in New York, “Every criticism we receive is a source for us to study and analyze what we can do better. Of course, the heat is an issue. Last year, at the Olympic Games in Paris (France), games during the day, in all sports, took place in very hot conditions. The cooling breaks are very important and we will see what we can do but we have stadiums with roofs and we will definitely use these stadiums during the day next year.”
Infantino and FIFA have been criticized by the players and the coaches for the decision to stage a 32-team Summer Club World Cup.
But the FIFA President defended the tournament and said some European teams who failed to qualify asked to be invited – “I’ve been speaking to teams from Europe who came here and all have been very happy. And some teams from Europe who didn’t qualify called us at FIFA and asked if they could participate. We will see what the future will bring us. We will make this better, we have had criticisms and we must do better. It has been a huge, huge, huge success and the golden era of football has started.”
‘Vanity Project’
‘BBC SPORT’ stated that but not all agree with the FIFA chief 32-team formula and the critics have called it an Infantino vanity project and the former Premier League team Liverpool F.C. (UK) Manager Jurgen Klopp referred to it as the “worst idea ever implemented in football”.
Mixed Bag
Much has been made of some of the low attendances.
Few matches failed to get 10,000 fans with the lowest attendance of 3,412 who watched the South African professional football club Mamelodi Sundowns F.C. beat the South Korean professional football club Ulsan HD FC 1-0.
But there have also been crowds of 60,000 or more with the highest being 80,619 who saw the Ligue 1 team PSG (France) beat the LaLiga team Atlético Madrid (Spain) 4-0 in Pasadena (California).
Most of the highest attendances were at games involving the PSG or the LaLiga team Real Madrid CF and the majority of the knockout games have been well-attended.
The average attendance of 38,369 is below that of any World Cup since Chile 1962.
‘BBC Sport’ further stated that the reasons given for some low attendances were the kickoff times (many were in the middle of a weekday), ticket prices, weather, and concerns about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raiding the games.
“The decisive question is ‘do the fans like it or not’?” said the former Premier League team Arsenal F.C. Manager Arsene Wenger, FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development.
Added Wenger, “We believe the attendances were projected as low and in reality were much higher. The answer is there.”
A dynamic pricing structure, which is common in US sports, is being used, where the cost of tickets can change regularly.
Football Terms
Purely in football terms the tournament could be considered a success.
There have been plenty of dramatic games and surprising scorelines – and an average of more than three goals per game.
Observed Michael Brown, former Premier League midfielder, “We saw a few games at the start of the tournament which were a bit of a mismatch but after that all the games have been competitive. The mixture of cultures has been amazing. We’ve seen some different styles of play but a lot of quality everywhere. The Brazilian teams in particular contributed to that in a massive way. They set the standard in matches, put pressure on the European teams and made them respond.”
Grabbing Eyeballs
The tournament – inevitably considering the lack of history or prestige – has not grabbed the attention of all the football fans.
Reports stated that the knockout rounds have had between 40 percent and 50 percent of the audience they would normally get for the Champions League equivalent.
However, it has grabbed eyeballs too – the Chelsea F.C. vs. the Major League Soccer (MLS) team Los Angeles FC (US) matchup was watched by a peak of 1.6 million people in the United Kingdom. The Real Madrid CF’s game against the Al-Hilal SFC (Saudi Arabia) was watched by a peak of 1.1 million viewers.
In Saudi Arabia more than 1.5 million people watched the Al-Hilal win over the Premier League team Manchester City F.C. in the last 16 despite kicking off at 4 am local time.
The Brazilians have arguably bought into the Club World Cup more fans than any other nation. All four of their teams reached the knockout stages.
All said and done, the prize pot for the 2025 Club World Cup was a drop-in-a-swoon amount with the Chelsea F.C. hitting the jackpot with the top-flight earning an estimated $114.6m (£84.5m).
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