18 In October, The New York Times reported that FIFA, the global world governing body for football (or “soccer,” as it’s called in the U.S. and Canada) had held an “emergency” meeting with unspecified broadcasters to drum up interest in the newly reformed Club World Cup. FIFA has worked hard in recent years to increase the number of football matches played by national teams and club organizations, and the expanded Club World Cup represented one of these efforts. In an effort to make football tournaments more appetizing to viewers, FIFA announced that Argentinian global superstar Lionel Messi will be participating with his club, Inter Miami FC, as a decision had been reached to allocate a berth to the winner of the United States’ Major League Soccer (MLS) Supporters’ Shield, the trophy given to the MLS franchise with the best regular season record. The current titleholder is Inter Miami. The announcement to allocate a Club World Cup spot to the Supporters’ Shield winner was made soon after Inter Miami FC were knocked out of the MLS playoffs. Some fans and pundits accused FIFA of choosing to reward the Supporters’ Shield winner with a berth in the Club World Cup in a panicked move to ensure Messi’s involvement in the competition. Some speculated that if Messi and his teammates had won the MLS playoffs to claim the MLS Cup (North American Soccer’s equivalent of the Super Bowl in the American football final), FIFA would have instead chosen victory in the playoffs to be the qualifying criteria. Many American fans felt bitter about the decision, as in American sports leagues winners of championships are universally proclaimed via the playoff system, a fact that fans felt FIFA was ignoring. Fans and pundits who are critical of the decision interpreted it as an attempt to showcase a media-friendly face with the game’s competitive nature coming as a secondary concern. Do viewers want their football competitions filled with household names, or do they want to watch the best athletic contest available? Or is the formula to drum up interest from viewers something else entirely? As of right now, the jury is out. The fruits of the current strategy will only be assessed once a slate of broadcasters for the Club World Cup is announced. It is worth that noting FIFA’s decision did not materialize in a vacuum: qualifying for international football competitions is notoriously inconsistent, and this inconsistency is encouraged by the intricate ecosystem consisting of clubs, leagues, and federations with long precedents of autonomy. This ecosystem had to be confronted when FIFA announced the expansion of the Club World Cup in a bid to restructure the event and extract it from the shadow of the much better-known FIFA World Cup (the universally watched competition where the world’s qualifying national teams confront each other every four years. FIFA claims the final of the competition is viewed by a billion people worldwide, although some analysts dispute that number). Most clubs were invited to the Club World Cup by way of an elaborate points system based on their results in “Continental Competitions” (typically the most prestigious competitions clubs can qualify for). However, an additional berth was left open for the host country (the United States) and the criteria with which it would be assigned was left pending when the reformatted competition was first announced in March of 2023. The fact that the Club World Cup will take place in the United States (June 15-July 13, 2025), and that Inter Miami (and Messi) are perceived as non-negotiable participants, is a testament to the increasingly central role the United States is playing in the world football ecosystem. While the MLS has worked to attract global superstars in the past, Messi’s signing for Inter Miami stands apart with regards to a football star’s media impact and interest from advertisers, perhaps comparable only to the signing of Brazilian legend Pelé by the New York Cosmos in 1975. While Messi’s participation in the league has certainly raised its profile, years of work have gone into constructing a robust football environment in the United States. The year before Messi signed with Inter Miami, the continental governing body of football in South America (known by the acronym CONMEBOL) responded positively to interest by the United States Soccer Federation (“US Soccer”) to host the Copa America, South America’s quadrennial national team competition, in the United States. The decision is notable in that the United States is not a member of the South American federation. It’s instead, appropriately, a member of the federation for North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football, which organizes its own continental competition, called the Gold Cup. The Copa America was held on American soil in 2024, and featured Mexico and Canada as invitees alongside the United States, in addition to the usual South American participants. While the United States had already hosted an edition of the competition in 2016, it had received special billing as “Copa America Centenario,” which was marketed as a one-off event. This time around, some media commentators (and even some national federation executives) expressed misgivings over the decision, pointing out that the expense of travel and lodgings (as well as the higher ticket prices) would mean that many South American fans would be priced out of seeing their national team. The most cynical opinions held that the governing body was distancing the game from ordinary fans, choosing instead to cater to those who could afford the journey, as well as to American fans and diaspora communities. Regardless of interpretations of the event, it was a financial success. However, some pundits, players, and coaches were less enthusiastic. While the MLS has made enormous strides in constructing football-specific stadiums in the U.S. to accommodate the competition’s larger crowds, American football stadiums were employed in the competition. An American football field is narrower than a regulation football field (commonly called a “pitch”), and for this reason American football stadiums can only accommodate the minimum field size permitted by football regulations. This led to the tournament’s matches being combated in tight quarters, favoring a physical and direct style of play that did not lend itself to spectacle. The use of football stadiums also had consequences for the broadcasting experience. Notably, when the U.S. was eliminated from the tournament at the hands of Uruguay, the high camera angle optimized for football was described as “Brutal” by Sports Illustrated. The New York Times was more nettlesome, dubbing the angle, “A stadium for ants.” In spite of this mixed reception, it is undeniable that U.S. football has demonstrated that there exists an ecosystem that can be appealing to other football governing bodies, and FIFA has taken notice. *Yuri Serafini is an economist specializing in sports By Yuri Serafini* FIFA’s Bet on U.S. Football is Called Club World Cup VIDEOAGE January 2025 Kicking Matches in America
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