Club world cup: football’s new white elephant

Gianni Infantino continues to build his legacy as FIFA President, but who does it really serve?

“There’s a sucker born every minute.” That’s what P.T. Barnum, aka the Greatest Showman once said.

It made sense for him to write a book called ‘The Art of Money Getting.’ He was good at it, pulling off deals and drawing crowds as well controversy. Maybe his audacity and the spectacles he pulled off with it, inspired Gianni Infantino to revamp the Club World Cup this summer.

“We’re going to need a bigger elephant!” was something Barnum didn’t say after his star attraction, Jumbo, was killed stone dead by a train. Barnum’s circus located themselves at a train yard as it served as a central base from which to travel out of, as and when the show toured North America.

For every paying customer that clambered to see Jumbo before he met is end, there was almost as many more who protested against the London Zoo selling him to Barnum beforehand. 100,000 Victorian school children signed a petition against Jumbo’s sale, but to no avail.

Jumbo had escaped one form of captivity only to find himself in another. Caught by poachers, sold and sold again, he eventually wound up first in the zoo at Jardin des Plantes, and then London. Adopted by local crowds as one of their own.

19th century entertainment. 21st century football. It’s all the same. A self interested showman can take a national treasure and flog it for their own self interest. And here we have the FIFA Club World Cup. The greatest show. Apparently white elephants still happen in America.

We possibly have the European Super League to blame for all this, or perhaps the Premier League even. A handful of chairman spotted a chance to take control of most of the TV money and broke away in 1992. In 2020 the same almost happened on the continent.

What stopped it? Fan push back. What killed it? The reconfiguration of the Champions League, which has largely been considered a success. So to FIFA. We must be bigger. We must be better, and we must reconfigure the Club World Cup.

After Jumbo died, Barnum needed a new spectacle, and coveted the King of Siam for three years, trying to get his hands on a white elephant. He eventually succeeded, sourcing one from Burma, albeit with a catch. It wasn’t that white.

So will the Club World Cup be football’s equivalent? With COVID delaying Euro 2020 many European footballers will be playing their fourth summer tournament in five years at this event. Is it really worth the cost to the player’s bodies, the clubs and to an extent the planet, to have another high travel, high emissions tournament that doesn’t need having?

Is anyone booking their flights to see this Chelsea? To see Auckland City FC? Or to catch Salzburg who came 34th in the Champions League group phase and won’t even finish the season as Austria’s best side?

The tournament has been flawed from the start with little interest in broadcasting rights. DAZN appears the only party to be showing games so far.

Then there’s the financial implications for clubs, with complex tax rules between different states in the US and FIFA yet to secure exemptions for clubs who pick up prize money. Under the current government administration in the USA, it seems unlikely they will.

Another of the entrants, or invitees depending how you look at it, Club León, won’t even kick a ball at the tournament, falling foul of FIFA’s common ownership rules. Enforcing those rules is right, but inviting two clubs from the same stable at the outset is farcical.

So will it be a success? It remains to be seen. But don’t be surprised if the travelling circus simply conjures up another white elephant in America.