Opaque nature of Club World Cup qualifying criteria means current domestic league champions Liverpool, Barcelona and Napoli won’t feature in tournament.
“The FIFA Club World Cup will determine who is the best club in the world.”
This is the claim of FIFA President Gianni Infantino about the FIFA Club World Cup, which is about to be played across the United States for the next month. With the tournament expanded from seven to 32 clubs, it’s certainly bigger, but will it be better?
Football fans are asking: where are Liverpool, Barcelona and Napoli? The three champions of England, Spain and Italy aren’t competing.
The qualifying criteria were designed to reflect the strength of clubs over the past four years. But that has caused FIFA a credibility problem for a tournament it hopes can eclipse UEFA’s Champions League.
