An expanded Club World Cup wrapped up with more questions than answers – plagued by empty seats, steep ticket discounts, stifling heat, weather delays and criticism over field conditions – despite Chelsea, the Premier League’s fourth-place finisher, pulling off a surprise title run.
One of the tournament’s key takeaways was FIFA’s sharp last-minute ticket price cuts, a move that may influence fans considering the 2026 World Cup.
Tickets for the Chelsea-Fluminense semifinal at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, plunged from $473.90 to just $13.40, while the final against Paris Saint-Germain dropped from $330 to $199.60.
With 104 matches slated for the expanded 48-team World Cup – many expected on weekday afternoons – FIFA has yet to clarify if dynamic pricing will apply and has declined to comment on future discounting.
The 63 matches drew 2.49 million spectators, about 62% of listed capacity. FIFA did not disclose tournament venue capacities, focusing on tickets sold rather than the roughly 1.5 million unfilled seats, and would not address the price cuts.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who championed the expanded tournament, said, “It is already the most successful club competition in the world.”
Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was less enthusiastic, telling the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag it was “the worst idea ever implemented in football” because of demands on players resulting from the extended season.
Paris Saint-Germain played its 65th competitive match and Chelsea its 64th since starting in mid-August. Each team will have 33 to 35 days off before the 2025-26 openers.
“I told my players that I had the feeling that this competition will become just as important or even more important than the Champions League,” Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said.
Maresca described the heat as dangerous. Borussia Dortmund coach Niko Kovač said the grass at MetLife Stadium, site of next year’s World Cup final, was so short “it’s more a golf green, so you can putt here.”
The streaming service DAZN bought world rights and sublicensed 24 of the 63 matches to TNT Sports, which averaged 418,000 viewers for the first 23 matches with English commentary on TNT, TBS and truTV. Seventeen matches sublicensed to TelevisaUnivision with Spanish commentary averaged 551,000 viewers.
By comparison, NBC’s networks averaged 510,000 viewers per match window for the Premier League in 2024-25. Regular-season Major League Baseball is averaging 1.841 million viewers this year on Fox and 1.74 million on ESPN. The NFL averaged 17.5 million viewers during the 2024 regular season.
DAZN has not yet released full figures but said it will do so during the week.
Temperatures topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) for many matches, with humidity making it feel more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).
“Honestly, the heat is incredible,” Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez said. “Playing in this temperature is very dangerous.”
Six games were delayed by weather for a total of eight hours, 29 minutes, raising questions over the suitability of the U.S. for next year’s World Cup amid global warming concerns. Only four of the 11 U.S. World Cup venues have roofs, including one that is not temperature-controlled.
“Players have played in these conditions before, but I think it doesn’t make it easy and it doesn’t make it as enjoyable, for sure,” said former Wales captain Gareth Bale, a DAZN commentator who attended the semifinals and final. “It’s one of those things and there’s no real way around it.”
At the 1994 World Cup in the U.S., just seven of 52 games had local night starts to accommodate European evening broadcasts.
While FIFA promoted the tournament as featuring the best teams in the world, it excluded the current champions of England (Liverpool), Spain (Barcelona), Italy (Napoli) and Portugal (Sporting Lisbon) among the dozen European clubs in the 32-team field.
Instead of inviting the latest league winners, FIFA’s entry rules were based primarily on continental titles won over four years and ranking points, with some limits on clubs from the same nation.
Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami were invited despite never winning the MLS title.
For top players, the Club World Cup meant potentially three consecutive years of summer tournaments, following the European Championship and Copa America last year and leading into the 2026 World Cup for national teams.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said the full impact of the new tournament might not be known until mid-next season.
“I may say: So listen, we are a disaster. We are exhausted. The World Cup destroyed us,” he admitted.
Bayern Munich and Germany star Jamal Musiala likely faces months out after sustaining a fractured fibula and a broken and dislocated ankle in his team’s quarterfinal loss to PSG.
FIFA wanted the Club World Cup to help grow the sport globally and shine a light on clubs outside Europe’s top leagues.
Brazilian teams excelled, with all four entrants advancing to the knockout stage. Botafogo produced one of the tournament’s biggest upsets by beating PSG in the group phase, while Fluminense reached the semifinals.
Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal advanced to the quarterfinals and upset Manchester City.
Lionel Messi led Inter Miami to the round of 16, including MLS’s first competitive win over European opposition, defeating Porto in the group phase.
The other U.S. teams, the Seattle Sounders and Los Angeles FC, were less impressive, exiting at the group stage winless.
New Zealand’s Auckland City lost 10-0 to Bayern, while a match between South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns and South Korea’s Ulsan drew just 3,412 fans.
Messi produced moments of magic, but a bout of acute gastroenteritis limited Kylian Mbappe’s involvement.
While many group-stage matches were competitive, only a few will be remembered for iconic moments.
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