Manchester City expectedly reached the FIFA Club World Cup final. They convincingly beat Japanese club Urawa Reds 3-0 in the semi-final. Success aside, many are still dismissive of the tournament’s pedigree. Among them, a Chelsea icon has now slammed the new format of the tournament that will start from 2025. It also becomes clear that the former Blues player is not a big fan of the Club World Cup.

City will look to not focus on the outside noise as they face Brazil’s Fluminense FC, with Pep Guardiola and his soccer machine eager to add one more trophy to their collection.

Chelsea legend brutally trolls the new format of FIFA Club World Cup 2025

A few days ago, as the knockout games of this year’s FIFA Club World Cup kicked off, the organization confirmed that a new format would start in 2025. The edition would see 32 games participate in the tournament. Chelsea legend Craig Burley is not too happy with this decision.

Speaking after the Manchester City match against Urawa Reds, he said, “Euro’s 2024 is coming. World Cup 2026 is coming. So when are the players getting rest in 2025? But now you are having a FIFA Club World Cup with 30-odd teams in that year”. He further added,” FIFA does not care about what the players want. All they care is about the money.”

According to multiple sources, the participating clubs will earn £50m, or close to $65m, from the tournament. But, this will, yet again, add to the number of games a player can play every year, increasing the chances of long-term injuries ahead of the FIFA World Cup.

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The new expanded format of FIFA Club World Cup 2025

FIFA has announced that there will be eight groups of four teams per group. The teams in the group will play each other once in a round-robin match. After these matches, the top 2 teams in their respective groups to the round of 16. They have also announced that there will be a knockout stage style from the round of 16. The organization has also confirmed that there will be no third-place play-off games.

FIFA is doing its best to make the 32-team tournament a fast-paced tournament. They have also announced that the host of the tournament, which is the USA for the new edition, will have one more team in their tournament. Despite the commitment of FIFA to make it a quick tournament, questions remain about players’ welfare and game load.

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