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Jeff Carlisle, U.S. soccer correspondentSep 20, 2024, 06:45 PM ET
- Jeff Carlisle covers MLS and the U.S. national team for ESPN FC.
The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, is among the venues selected to host games at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, with FIFA targeting an announcement on the full list of locations in the upcoming weeks, sources told ESPN.
Other sites under consideration, sources said, include Seattle’s Lumen Field, Orlando’s Inter&Co Stadium, Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, though none of these has been confirmed.
The Guardian was the first to report the Club World Cup venues, while also noting that MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, and an undisclosed venue in the Philadelphia area are also set to be named.
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The Club World Cup has long been pushed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino in an effort for world soccer’s governing body to garner more of the revenue pouring into the club game. FIFA had planned to launch the expanded version of the tournament, initially with 24 teams, in 2021 in China, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced its cancellation.
FIFA confirmed in June 2023 that it would launch a 32-team Club World Cup in the U.S. in 2025, scheduling the tournament over a four-week period from June 15 to July 13.
But FIFA has run into opposition from other stakeholders in the sport. Players, coaches and unions — including FIFPRO and the Professional Footballers’ Association in England — have flagged concerns over an increasing workload. Sources have told ESPN that the Premier League is concerned about the imposition of the Club World Cup in the summer window, a space usually taken by international soccer.
There is congestion in the U.S. as well, with the Concacaf Gold Cup set to be held in a similar timeframe, June 14-July 6.
To that end, sources have said the Club World Cup was slated to take place on the East Coast of the U.S. while the Gold Cup would be held mostly at West Coast venues. But the participation of the Seattle Sounders has complicated matters; hence the possible inclusion of Lumen Field as one of the stadiums for the Club World Cup.
Though the logo and audio signature for the competition were announced Sept. 4, plenty of details remain to be ironed out.
FIFA announced in mid-July that it had opened bidding for broadcast rights after it was reported that talks with Apple had stalled due to the tech giant’s $1 billion offer falling far short of FIFA’s $4 billion asking price. The Athletic reported that FIFA held a call with potential broadcasters earlier this week to try to move the process along, but little to no progress has been made.
Information from ESPN’s Lizzy Becherano and Mark Ogden was used in this report.
