FIFA Club World Cup kicks off with empty seats, a mismatch and searing heat

The FIFA Club World Cup is under way. The much-criticised competition kicked off with five fixtures over the weekend and if senior figures at world football’s governing body hoped the action would deflect from the negative press in the build-up, they will have been disappointed.

Scheduling the 32-team competition at the end of a long season was already an unpopular decision with many players, with the likes of Rodri and Dani Carvajal having hit out at the sheer amount of matches being played after suffering serious injuries late last year.

Meanwhile, former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher has said there is “no appetite” for the Club World Cup from fans, players or the media and ticket sales have been disappointing, with prices slashed on the eve of the competition in order to drum up some last-minute interest.

In a nation where the most popular sports feature constant points-scoring, football has taken time to grow and for many Americans, remains difficult to understand. Its popularity with the nation’s huge population of Latinos has helped, as has the success of the United States women’s teams over the years, but a 0-0 draw in the first fixture on Saturday night was hardly ideal – even if the match between Inter Miami and Egypt’s Al Ahly was actually an entertaining encounter.

The Florida side are only in the Club World Cup at all after receiving a special invite from FIFA president Gianni Infantino, despite winning the Supporters’ Shield and not the MLS. Bizarre.

With thousands of tickets unsold, students at Miami Dade College were able to purchase five for $20, a vast reduction from the $349 when tickets orginally went on sale in December. Even though the official attendance for the opener was quoted at over 60,000, there were clearly thousands of empty seats and reports have claimed FIFA moved fans to different parts of the stadium to make the venue appear more full on the television broadcast. Palmeiras and Porto also drew 0-0 in Group A’s other game on Sunday.

The competition’s second match did have goals aplenty. Yay. The problem is that all 10 of those were scored by one team, Bayern Munich, in a 10-0 win over Auckland City. If FIFA’s aim with this competition is to make football more inclusive and strengthen teams from the rest of the world, there is clearly much work to be done.

Some members of Auckland’s squad of part-timers, featuring estate agents, students and teachers, have taken unpaid holiday to feature in the Club World Cup. An amazing experience for those players, but are these fixtures really required? The actual men’s World Cup, in 22 editions, has never included such a one-sided game.

Auckland qualified for the Club World Cup as the best OFC Champions League winners over the ranking period between 2021 and 2024, but results like this might make FIFA rethink for the next edition. That said, Bayern have hit six, seven, eight and even nine goals past European teams in recent years, too.

In another one-sided contest, European champions Paris Saint-Germain thrashed Atlético Madrid 4-0 in the searing heat of Pasadena, with the match paused for two “cooling breaks” and players handed wet towels. World players’ union FIFPro has said that these measures “do not do enough to protect the health and performance of players”.

After the match, PSG coach Luis Enrique and midfielder Vitinha both criticised the decision to schedule the fixture in the intense heat. “The match was clearly influenced by the temperature,” Luis Enrique said. “The time slot is great for European audiences, but the teams are suffering.” Atlético’s Marcos Llorente also complained. “We are adapting to the heat of playing at this time. No European team is used to competing with such high temperatures,” he said. And he added: “It’s impossible. It’s a terrible heat. My toe nails were hurting, I couldn’t slow down or speed up.”

With temperatures likely to be similar during next summer’s World Cup in the USA, Mexico and Canada, fixture scheduling is something else FIFA will do well to consider in what looks set to be a challenging month for world football’s governing body.