FIFA has been threatened with legal action by player unions and world leagues – including the Premier League – if it does not move the expanded 2025 Club World Cup.
A letter to FIFA president Gianni Infantino warns that the sport’s schedule is now ‘beyond saturation’.
It says calendar changes such as adding the new 32-team Club World Cup – currently scheduled to take place in June and July 2025 – have created ‘economic harm’ to domestic leagues and have pushed players ‘beyond their limits’.
It calls on the FIFA Council to reschedule the Club World Cup and to reopen discussions on the international calendar for the period up to 2030.
‘Should FIFA refuse to formally commit to resolving the issues, as set out above, at its upcoming council, we shall be compelled to advise our members on the options available to them, both individually and collectively, to proactively safeguard their interests,’ the letter states.
FIFA has been threatened with legal action if it does not reschedule the 2025 Club World Cup
The expanded, 32-team tournament to take place next summer is part of calendar changes causing ‘economic harm’ and pushing players ‘beyond their limits’
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‘These options include legal action against FIFA, on which we have now commissioned external expert advice.’
The letter has been sent by the World Leagues Association and world players’ union FIFPRO, which respectively count the Premier League and the Professional Footballers’ Association among their members.
The Club World Cup is due to be played between June 15 and July 13.
The leagues and unions accused FIFA of ‘continually and consistently making unilateral decisions that benefit its own competitions and commercial interests, while negatively affecting national leagues and players’.
It added: ‘Over a significant period, FIFA has ignored repeated attempts by leagues and unions to engage on this issue.
‘Leagues and players cannot simply be expected to ‘adapt’ to FIFA’s decisions, which are driven by FIFA’s business strategy. We have reached the point where this situation must immediately be addressed both from a procedural and substantive perspective.
‘The World Leagues Association and FIFPRO, as social partners at a global level, stress that, had FIFA followed a transparent, objective, and non-discriminatory process in adopting its calendar decisions, the current situation and subsequent requests would not have arisen.’
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said last month: ‘It is getting to a tipping point. The feedback we have from players is that there is too much football being played and there is constant expansion.
The current format involves just one team from each continent but FIFA are expanding it
Premier League CEO Richard Masters warned calendar changes are ‘getting to a tipping point’
‘The Premier League hasn’t changed shape. What has changed over the last few decades is the march of international and regional football competitions.
‘It stands to reason if you overload the calendar and the players, at some point, something has to give.’
FIFA has been contacted for comment regarding the letter.
