FIFA’s Club World Cup Relaunch Offers Valuable Lessons

Seeking to capitalize on the massive global interest in professional soccer, FIFA, the sport’s international governing body, has gone all in on a revamp of its quadrennial Club World Cup event, expanding it from eight to 32 teams for its next edition in summer 2025 and offering vastly increased payouts to clubs as an incentive to participate.

But with just over seven months to go before the scheduled first match next June, the tournament—which will take place in 11 U.S. cities—currently has no broadcaster, one sponsor and its organizer is headed to arbitration with two of its largest and most important partners over whether they should pay more to be involved with the new event.

What can other sports properties and marketers learn from all of this? Below are five takeaways ranging from the most particular to the most expansive:

Make contract language ultra specific. Adidas and Coca-Cola, two of FIFA’s longest-serving global Partners—the organization’s highest level of sponsorship—assert that their current agreements grant them partnership rights to all FIFA competitions, including the Club World Cup. FIFA views the expanded tournament as a new event not covered by the existing contracts.

The Guardian reported last week that “separate cases have been lodged at the Swiss Arbitration Centre in Zurich and are expected to be heard in the coming weeks” in order to resolve the disagreement between the sponsors and the rights holder.

Without seeing the actual contracts, it’s impossible to know which side will prevail, but the fact that the parties are in arbitration clearly suggests that the language in the agreements is too vague and open to interpretation about what constitutes a new versus an existing event.

While it is impossible to anticipate every potential situation, parties to sponsorship contracts should endeavor to spell out all major contingencies. In this case, knowing that events often undergo major changes, the contracts should have clarified that an existing event that undergoes a significant expansion or other transformation would no longer be covered by the agreement.

Include dispute resolution process in agreements. It’s likely that the cases have been filed at the independent arbitration center because the contracts call for that specific outcome.

Given that the Swiss Arbitration Centre is a respected organization often favored by multinational companies, this appears to be a good course of action and a reminder to pre-determine how disagreements will be handled in order to expedite a conclusion.

Line up media rights agreements early. Admittedly, this is sometimes easier said than done, but having no broadcasters in place for the event has most certainly hindered securing sponsors. Chinese consumer electronics maker Hisense became the Club World Cup’s first corporate partner last week.

Many have pointed to FIFA’s reportedly seeking $4 billion in media rights revenue as a sign that the governing body has unreasonable expectations, another reminder that valuations of media and sponsorship rights should be grounded in reality before entering the market, otherwise there is great risk of dragging out the process trying to land on figures that both sides can live with.

Don’t put two major events in the same geography. Adding to the challenges of signing brand partners, many North America-based sponsors have their eyes on the bigger prize of the World Cup, which will be held in the U.S., Canada and Mexico in 2026.

It may have been wiser to put the 2025 Club World Cup in a country where it would face less competition from the grandaddy of FIFA events.

Consider that we may be reaching a saturation point for major events. For a long time now, volume growth has equaled revenue growth in sports. Want more money? Add more events.

At some point, there is a level that exceeds capacity, whether it’s the ability of fans to maintain interest, of athletes to compete without risk to their health and well-being, or of the entities that foot the bill—media companies, sponsors, ticket-buyers, etc.—to spend money and earn a return on their investment.

The Club World Cup still has time to prove that there is room for it on the soccer and sports event calendar, but the lukewarm reaction to the tournament so far from the people and entities necessary to its success indicates that FIFA’s latest attempt to grow its reach may be a step too far.