FIFA has announced that Morocco will host the 2023 Club World Cup slated for February 1-11, 2023, while also announcing a new 32-team Club World Cup format from 2025.
This was confirmed by the President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, after the FIFA Council met on Friday December 16, to adopt a number of key decisions for the future of football.
This will be the third time Morocco is hosting the Club World Cup competition, as it did so in 2013 and 2014. The annual tournament features clubs that have won the champions league of their respective confederations. Seven teams face off for the championship throughout a roughly two-week period.
Chelsea is the defending champions after beating Palmeiras 2-1 in Abu Dhabi in February this year. Morocco’s Wydad Club Athletic will represent Africa as the 2021/22 CAF Champions League titleholders.
European champions Real Madrid, South American champion Flamengo and Seattle Sounders, the first CONCACAF Champions League winner from the United States, will play in the traditional seven-team tournament from February 1-11.
The tournament will be one of the last seven-team editions for continental champions with an expanded, month-long tournament planned to start in 2025.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino disclosed that the intended change was ‘making it really like a World Cup.’
Morocco recorded Africa’s best performance in World Cup history at Qatar 2022 by reaching the semifinal and will play Croatia in the third-place playoff on Saturday December 17.
The FIFA Club World Cup
The FIFA Club World Cup is an international men’s association football competition organised by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport’s global governing body.
The competition was first contested in 2000 as the FIFA Club World Championship. It was not held from 2001 to 2004 due to a combination of factors in the cancelled 2001 tournament, most importantly the collapse of FIFA’s marketing partner International Sport and Leisure (ISL), but since 2005, it has been held every year, and has been hosted by Brazil, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Qatar. It struggles to attract interest in most of Europe, and is the object of heated debate in South America.
In 2005, the Intercontinental Cup was merged with the FIFA Club World Championship, and in 2006, the tournament was renamed as the FIFA Club World Cup. The winner of the Club World Cup receives the FIFA Club World Cup trophy and a FIFA World Champions certificate.
The current format of the tournament involves seven teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation over a period of about two weeks. Real Madrid hold the record for most titles, having won the competition on four occasions. Corinthians’ inaugural victory remains the best result from a host nation’s national league champions.
Teams from Spain have won the tournament seven times, the most for any nation.
