By any purpose measure, to cry all, the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup has been a successful tournament.
The competition was an average of around 40,000 fans per match and in the process, it was shown that there is still no total monopoly on the club football in Europe.
At the same time, exceptional sports of sides like Paris St.-Germen and Chelsea-who would play in the final of Sunday-showed that the global aristocrats were not careful about taking care of the competition, replacing Trivego Pitchman despite the protest of Germany’s most famous former Premier League manager.
But even though most criticism of the Club World Cup comes into bad belief, with the desire to keep the world’s football money out of the will of European clubs, FIFA president Gianni Infantino is still worthy of wearing all this. Because it is very clear that he almost accidentally landed on a good idea, while 50 percent of cash grabbing, 50 percent pursuing the wishes of the vanity project.
We know it primarily because every legitimate grip with the Club World Cup was completely avoidable and easily estimated.
In the last three decades, instead of football stadiums with about two dozen 20,000 to 30,000 seats, NFL stadiums have vacant seats playing in majority matches of tournament matches.
According to reporting from athletic, Infantino personally preferred large locations on suggestions from its Miami-based employees to bend more over MLS stadiums. It may be that their employees have a better instinct than that. Or maybe they can, you know, saw recent presence data from the high-profile friendly in the US which was widely available.
Even Dumber, Infantino eventually ignored everyone, selected more than half a dozen huge places, but one of the 10 NFL domed stadiums and one of the nine climate-controlled places. Despite the emphasis on most of the local time kickoffs to fill the European Prime-Time TV schedule.
As a result, the situation of Swelling was not surprising for anyone who looked at MLS since its construction three decades ago. The league also had to learn a difficult path, but eventually went away from the day matches during the summer months. In 2025, only seven of the league’s 510 games were slot for the afternoon kickoff between June and August, and three of them were in Seattle, where the average summer height is only in Fahrenheit of the 70s.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup, with the next summer in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the FIFA chief of the Global Football Development Arsène Wenger indicated that the FIFA could closely pay attention to the local climate while determining the time of the time of Kickoff. But can you really rely on any organization to learn from mistakes when its President clearly ignored the guidance of his own employees and the domestic league of the host nation? Or when he does not consult the latest farmer’s almanac pages?
Club World Cup Global Club has been successful due to rich migrants – and club football support – which has been ignored for a very long time. Finally, the best European teams have still ruled the highest rule, but the competition showed that the difference is not almost as big as some may have accepted.
Perhaps Infantino understood it at some level. But based on his other decision making, the safe estimate is that FIFA’s newest competition has been successful despite its President, not because of it.
