The legal battle against the 2025 Club World Cup has taken off in earnest after players’ union Fifpro and the top European leagues filed a complaint against FIFA.
The complaints have been growing that the fixture list is already far too congested and just getting worse with the expansion of the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League formats.
Above all, the introduction of the new Club World Cup format from 2025 means some players will get barely any time off at all in the summer.
Football world united against Club World Cup
Now the forces of football have united to take action, so Fifpro joined in with the European Leagues, which represents 39 divisions including Serie A and the Premier League, plus LaLiga.
They filed a legal complaint to the European Commission, which Fifpro director of policy Alexander Bielefeld called “unprecedented.”
The battle started in June with the legal action in the Brussels court of commerce “challenging the legality of FIFA’s decisions to unilaterally set the international match calendar and, in particular, the decision to create and schedule the FIFA Club World Cup 2025.”
That tournament will run in the USA from June 15 to July 13, 2025, with Inter and Juventus participating from Serie A.
“Serie A, like almost all other European leagues, has not increased the number of games in the last 20 years,” noted Lega Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo.
“On the other hand, FIFA and UEFA are constantly incrementing the dimensions of their competitions, both for clubs and national teams, and now we have reached a point of saturation for the fixture list.
“The problem of overloading players with fixtures is not caused by the domestic competitions, but by FIFA and UEFA.
“The difference is that while UEFA had significant consultation with all the parties involved, FIFA imposed its new format without any discussion, consultation or accepting any kind of rapport with the organisers of other competitions.”