For someone who is the head of soccer’s global governing body, FIFA president Gianni Infantino sure does hate the sport. Or the players who play it, at least.
The expanded Club World Cup, the latest frontier in Infantino and FIFA’s incessant cash grab, kicks off Saturday. An idea that no one was clamoring for, the 32-team, month-long tournament adds to what is already an overcrowded calendar and threatens to dilute the quality of the game.
Well, yes. But what’s a little thing like risk of injury and exhaustion when Infantino and his FIFA cronies can stuff more money into their pockets?
Oh, Infantino will say the Club World Cup is meant to expand the game. To bring a spotlight to teams outside of Europe and broaden soccer’s appeal. But that is, to put it nicely, hogwash.
The Club World Cup is a glorified ego trip for Infantino, who put his name on the trophy and his face on a Panini sticker. He wants credit, and cash, and he doesn’t really care about the long-term consequences.
Players have, for years already, been complaining about the increasingly crowded calendar.
Say you’re a top men’s player from one of Europe’s powerhouse countries and you play in one of the top European leagues. The club schedule is 38 or 34 games, depending on the league. Champions League or Europa League games will add anywhere from eight to 17 more games. Domestic cups can mean another half-dozen or more.
Then there’s national team duty. There are qualifiers, for either the European championship or the World Cup. Friendlies. And, for the last seven years, the Nations League.
That adds up.
Even before the Club World Cup starts, France and Inter Milan striker Marcus Thuram has played 56 games this season, according to FBRef.com. After playing 58 last season. Should Inter reach the Club World Cup final, Thuram will have gone more than 12 months without a significant break.
His France teammate Kylian Mbappe has played a whopping 64 games since last July — and that’s with Real Madrid going out in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. Lamine Yamal, arguably the game’s brightest young star, played in 65 games this season between Spain and Barcelona.
These aren’t garbage minutes, either. Thuram, Mbappe, Yamal and the other top players are starting and playing most, if not all, of these games.
Christian Pulisic has gotten grief for asking out of the U.S. men’s national team roster for the Gold Cup so he can be in top form for next summer’s World Cup, but can you blame him? According to FBRef.com and U.S. Soccer, Pulisic has played in 118 games for club and country since signing with Milan in July 2023.
And that doesn’t even take into account the transatlantic travel required when he plays for the USMNT during the club season. Pulisic is banged up and he’s bone tired, and you can’t keep running him into the ground if you want him in top form for next summer’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
“After thoughtful discussions and careful consideration, we made the collective decision that this is the right moment for him to get the rest he needs,” said Matt Crocker, U.S. Soccer’s sporting director.
“The objective is to ensure he’s fully prepared to perform at the highest level next season.”
Players aren’t the only ones showing signs of fatigue. Broadcasters worldwide yawned at the media rights for the Club World Cup before the now-Saudi-backed DAZN agreed at the 11th hour to take them. Ticket sales have been anemic, with FIFA having to cut prices even for games featuring Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami.
This is a problem of FIFA’s own making.
Infantino is going heavy on the “historical” nature of the Club World Cup, but that’s a tough sell. Especially when the World Cup is just a year away and will be played in many of the same cities.
Fans don’t have Saudi sugar daddies like Infantino and his FIFA brethren. If the choice for their disposable income is between next year’s World Cup and a second-tier tournament that is not new, just revamped, and is being played in many of the same cities as the World Cup, that’s not really a choice at all.
“Football is such an important sport all over the world,” Infantino said Tuesday.
Be nice if he and FIFA treated it that way, rather than a means of feeding their own egos and bank accounts.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.