Manchester City are likely to top the list of distributions to clubs under FIFA’s Club Benefits Programme (CBP) for the third World Cup in succession, calculations from The Athletic have found.To go alongside the largest World Cup in history, FIFA will also share out more money than ever before to clubs that release players for participation. The CBP pot for 2026 sits at $355million (£265m), a 70 per cent increase on the $209m paid to clubs whose players competed in each of the past two World Cups, in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.Of that $355million, $250m will be allocated in respect of players who performed at this summer’s engorged, 48-team finals. Unlike in previous iterations, FIFA are also rewarding clubs that released players for qualifiers, too, with $100m allocated there. The remaining $5m, or whatever is left after administrative costs related to implementing the programme, will “be allocated to the benefit of club football”.The Athletic’s calculations cover that primary $250million tranche of payments and find, just as in 2018 and 2022, Manchester City come out on top. We estimate their representation at the 2026 finals has earned them $4.4million (£3.3m).FIFA pays out on the basis of how many days finals participants are at the competition, with clubs entitled to roughly $5,000 per day, per player, between the mandatory release date of May 25 and the day after their national team’s last match in the competition. City benefited from six players making it to the World Cup’s final weekend: Rayan Cherki, Marc Guehi, Nico O’Reilly, John Stones and James Trafford were each present in Miami for Saturday’s third-place play-off between France and England, while Rodri started in Spain’s 1-0 win against Argentina in the final on Sunday.The world’s already richest clubs pepper the top of the list — Barcelona, second four years ago, are also second in our estimate — which stands to reason given it is their players who are most likely to feature on the world stage.By our reckoning, City earned over $1million more than the next highest-earning English club, Arsenal, though that was impacted by the latter reaching the Champions League final. That took place on May 30, five days after the mandatory release date; clubs playing in cup finals were, quite rightly, allowed to release players later, though that naturally reduced their CBP earnings. We reckon Arsenal’s figure would have been almost $500,000 higher in other circumstances, but of course, they earned much more than that from reaching European club football’s showpiece.We found it was not just the usual English suspects high up the list. Crystal Palace, with 12 players at these finals, were the Premier League’s third-highest earners ($2.7million) by our calculation; Sunderland, whose players scored eight goals this summer, a mark only four clubs topped, were the sixth-highest in England and 13th-highest overall ($2.2m).