Morocco picked by FIFA to host Club World Cup in February
- World Soccer Today -
DOHA, Qatar( World Soccer Today) — Morocco was awarded by FIFA on Friday with hosting rights for the coming Club World Cup in February, with an expanded 32- platoon edition set to launch in 2025.
European champion Real Madrid, South American champion Flamingo and Seattle Sounders, the first CONCACAF titleholders League winner from the United States, will play in the traditional seven-platoon event from Feb. 1- 11.
After Morocco’s inspiring run to the World Cup semifinals in Qatar, the country will now carry the coming global soccer event in six weeks ’ time, FIFA’s ruling council decided.
It'll be one of the last seven- platoon editions for international titleholders with an expanded, month-long event planned to start in 2025.
FIFA chairman Gianni Infantino said the intended change was “ making it really like a World Cup.
” In Morocco, Casablanca should carry games with the megacity set to give two brigades in the 10- day competition, which features international titleholders from each of the six confederations in world soccer.
Wydad won Africa’s titleholders League last season and also the Moroccan league. The place FIFA reserves for the host nation’s domestic champion should return to league runner- up Raja. Both brigades are grounded in Casablanca, where the000- seat Stade Mohammed V is the likely venue for some of the eight Club World Cup games.
Morocco also hosted Club World Mugs in 2013 and 2014, which were won by Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, independently
Only European and South American brigades have won the Club World Cup since it was revived in the current format in 2005.
FIFA has long wanted to launch an expanded interpretation with 24 or 32 brigades in an event played in June.
A planned initial edition in 2021 in China was cancelled because of the COVID- 19 epidemic, though no event format had been agreed nor broadcasters or guarantors inked.
A 2025 launch is now planned, Infantino said, promising addresses with soccer stakeholders after the ruling council approved the principle Friday.
It could be hosted in the United States and serve as a test event for the 2026 World Cup, which is being hosted in the.S., Canada and Mexico.
