Al Ahly SC, Wydad Athletic Club and the next two winners of the CAF Champions League will compete in the newly expanded 32-team FIFA Club World Cup.
The decision to change the Club World Cup to a competition hosted every four years as of June 2025 has been ‘unanimously approved’ by the FIFA Council with the qualification process quite clear from Africa.
With four slot allocations for the Confederation of African Football (CAF) the champions within the period of 2021 and 2024 will gain access to the global competition.
If one club won two or more Champions League titles within the time period, club rankings will take effect to select the participant for the respective confederation.
But there will be a cap of two clubs per country when determining the said participant within this method of granting access through their ‘calculated’ sporting criteria.
FIFA has also confirmed that talks are ongoing with confederations and major stakeholders to determine a fair ‘calculation mechanism’ for the club rankings.
While the new Club World Cup is already in motion – when it officially kicks off in three years’ time there will still be an annual FIFA Club competition that will see a final played at a neutral venue.
The system would work as followed where the inter-continental champions of that specific year would face off in a play-off competition and the winner will face the UEFA Champions League winner of that year.
All the decisions on the newly formed competition formats we confirmed ahead of the 73rd FIFA Congress in Kigali, Rwanda on Thursday.
