FIFA has just announced that this year’s Club World Cup will offer record prize money for a domestic club competition. The 32 participating sides will be entitled to over US $1 billion between them, although that is likely to be weighted in favour of the European teams in their latest bid to get them to take the competition seriously.
It is another example of the carrot-and-stick approach FIFA has adopted as it tries to raise the profile of the event. Clubs have been told they must field their strongest available squads—or face consequences—but on the other hand, the transfer window will be opened especially early for them to supplement those squads.
The question is, who will be watching this tournament? Although FIFA has announced a deal with a global streaming service, few terrestrial channels have signed up to show the event, and that means potentially hundreds of millions of people will be denied access to matches. And, even for fans of some of the teams involved, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, because the tournament is being staged in the USA, that means getting up in the middle of the night to watch games, even if they have access to them, or can afford subscription fees.
Instead, they may be forced to turn to the live scores provided by various platforms or wait until highlights become available on YouTube.
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