Is FIFA destroying its own beloved tournament?

FIFA - Ảnh 1. — Bayern Munich scored 10 goals against Auckland City - Photo: REUTERS

As expected, Oceania representative Auckland City was completely destroyed by Bayern Munich, suffering a 10-0 defeat in the opening match of Group C of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025.

It was an inevitable defeat when one side was the most powerful football team in the world , and the other side was a group of semi-professional players. Many of the Auckland players were drivers, workers, office workers...

So the question is, why can such a team automatically qualify for the FIFA Club World Cup?

The FIFA Club World Cup will use a 32-team format similar to the previous World Cup (for national teams) model (before increasing to 48 teams from 2026). And under this model, Oceania will only have half a place.

In the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, New Zealand topped the Oceania region and entered a play-off match against the representatives of North Central America and the Caribbean. New Zealand lost 0-1.

But no one can object to that. Oceania's football is too small to qualify for the World Cup. That's why Australia has applied to switch to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) since 2006 to gain experience.

The national team level is like that, the club level is even more amateur. Auckland City is clearly only a semi-professional club, but has won the continental championship 4 years in a row.

FIFA may have wanted to create fairytales for the FIFA Club World Cup. But there were no miracles. Bayern Munich's 10-0 win was a slap in the face to the tournament's marketing efforts.

Not only that, FIFA's restriction of each country having a maximum of 2 clubs in this tournament has also been criticized.

Many fans wonder why an Austrian club like Salzburg was able to win a ticket to the FIFA Club World Cup, while giants like Barca and Liverpool were eliminated?

Europe has a total of 12 representatives, which are the 12 teams with the highest scores on the UEFA rankings - through achievements in continental tournaments in 4 seasons (2020-2021 to 2023-2024).

But based on this scoreboard, Salzburg is only ranked 18th, while Liverpool is ranked 8th - eliminated, and Barca - ranked 12th is also eliminated.

The reason is that above Liverpool are two English representatives, Man City (ranked 1st) and Chelsea (ranked 5th). Liverpool therefore lost their ticket by default. Similarly, Barca is also inferior to two Spanish representatives, Real Madrid (ranked 2nd) and Atletico Madrid (ranked 10th).

FIFA's two-club maximum rule has eliminated Liverpool, Barca, Napoli - the three reigning champions of England, Spain and Italy. They then welcome Salzburg or Juventus, teams that have been far behind the above group for many years.

Any tournament called the "World Cup" should be based on the world's best teams. But then FIFA takes in a bunch of semi-professional, mid-level teams, and leaves out the strongest, most traditional clubs.

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HUY DANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/fifa-co-tu-tay-pha-nat-giai-dau-con-cung-20250616072735258.htm