Borrowed culture in a void of indifference: the almost-world Cup

Mega-bucks tournament, which kicks off tonight, sees Fifa shed its role as overseer and regulator to become the investor-disruptor of every league on the planet

CHATGPT simulated the tournament: PSG beat Bayern in final. Do we really need to play it?

Barney Ronay
14 Jun 2025 - THE GUARDIAN / Sport

Fire up the marching band. Rouse the majorettes from their state of indifference. Put out more flags. Put out some flags. Put out a flag. Er … is anyone actually there? IShowspeed? Can you hear me Pitbull? Welcome to the almost-world Cup, an almost-real almost-event that will perhaps, with a favourable wind, now begin to feel like almost-football.

This week Gianni Infantino described Fifa’s regeared tournament as football’s Big Bang, referencing the moment of ignition from which all the matter in the universe was dispersed out of a previously cold and indifferent void. And to be fair, Infantino was half-right. So far we have the void.

America, we have been repeatedly told, is ready for this, primed and hungry for Fifa’s billion-dollar event. The evidence on the ground is: maybe. But not in a way that you’d actually notice. Instead, as the Club World Cup builds towards tonight’s opener, Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami versus Al Ahly at the Hard Rock Stadium, this is a tournament that exists at the fringe of America’s densely packed attention economy, an ambient drawl of half-heard voices, noises through the wall.

The last week has brought almost-news of $4 tickets, starplayer platitudes, immigration officials at the opening game. And all of this in a host city where people still look a little blank and say things such as: “The Club World what?” and: “Actually I like hockey, but my nephew, he loves Cristiano Ronaldo, and let me tell you, what a body that guy has.”

This is a place where things keep almost-happening. Come and watch Inter Miami train on plasticised grass next to a private airfield, but no, not with Messi present. Wait! Infantino is giving a public address. Although it turns out he’s sent a video message (“un momento muy importante”) that people can video on their phones, while in turn being videoed by the official video crew, the only revelation from which was that Gianni appears to have acquired an excitingly badger-ish set of eyebrows. So there’s that.

Otherwise, at times it has felt as if the only publicity around this thing is occasional in-house footage of Infantino appearing at some sealed indoor hype-event, looking like a fringe member of the intergalactic royal family being held hostage in a luxury basement, forced to stand next to Ronaldinho and the drummer from Spandau Ballet, and talk only about massive stuff, huge things, the biggest.

Through all this, Infantino has become a slightly stretched figure. Understandably so. Here is a man charged with calling an imaginary sporting world into being, out there constantly saying things that are untrue about a thing that doesn’t exist to people who don’t care. Three days before the big kickoff it emerged that CHATGPT had simulated the entire tournament. Paris Saint-germain beat Bayern Munich in the final. Do we actually need to play it?

And yet, of course, we do. And with a duty, not to Fifa, or to the revenues of tomorrow, but to the idea this game still belongs even in debased form to the people who care about it.

It is traditional at times such as these to hammer out a tournament preview, a distillation of all that excitement, the cultural collisions that have led to this place, the hardedged imponderables of elite sport, the beauty in store. Hmm, yes. About that.

This will be difficult on this occasion because this thing is ersatz, a pop-up. Sport is culture, memory and connection. But this is all borrowed culture, a burger made out of Plasticine, the tournament equivalent of Qatar’s desert city of Lusail, with its fake Rimini, its imitation Paris.

It will be difficult because there are simply too many games, 63 of them across the next four weeks in 11 host cities, everything suitably

maxed out in a country where even the act of buying a packet of crisps involves engaging with a sleeping bag full of violent toxic maize bombs, where there is a fear too many of these will be glazed, empty occasions, Warhol-ish performance pieces staged to capture a moment of perfect corporate emptiness. Next up: Ulsan HD against Mamelodi Sundowns at the Inter&Co Stadium Orlando. We’ll slide down the surface of things.

For all that there is a sense this must matter, because the clubs matter, that we can still ingest this thing like a sporting amphetamine, some kind of engagement generated from a standing start. There have been some odd staging decisions, but there are still epic collisions here, A-list teams in great American cities. River Plate versus Inter at the Lumen Field. Bayern and Boca Juniors at the Hard Rock. PSG and Botafogo in Los Angeles. Anything yet? A flicker of the needle?

For those who don’t have access to MLS there is a chance to see Messi again, here as a mobile marketing device, but also the most beautifully gifted footballer of the past 50 years. Real Madrid are genuinely interesting, the team of roving stars taking their first steps under a systems manager, crowbarred into new shapes before our eyes.

The continuing rebuild of Manchester City is a live event. There are subplots, a Trent at Madrid arc, Simone Inzaghi squiring his new love interest, Al-hilal, around the place with Inter also in the ballroom. João Cancelo has played for six competing clubs, so is in effect Mr Club World Cup, out there non-celebrating all his as yet nonexistent goals on the almost-biggest stage.

Is it good yet? Has it hit the bloodstream? This will be harder because of the unpalatable genesis of this thing, the fact it is in the end the work of a single autocratic leader. This is, of course, the overempowered president of Fifa, with a sense at the big kick-off that only Infantino will feel any actual sense of ownership, eyes boggling on his executive banquette, brow heaving as he births his personal god-league and holds it slithering to his chest.

It will be difficult because this entity is also deeply disruptive, a case of Fifa digging its fingers hungrily into every league and club in the world. For all the blather about inclusion, Europe has 12 teams here. Fifa is pumping most of that $1bn (£739m) prize pot into European club football, in many cases equivalent to a season’s broadcast revenue. What is its mandate for doing this? Fifa is supposed to oversee and regulate, not act as an investor-disruptor, some kind of football-bro overlord.

What other organisation allows this level of influence in one person, or lets its supposedly neutral leader cosy up to despots and political leaders, passing it all off, laughably, as Good for Football? So much so that the one element we know will cut Infantino to the quick is the fact Donald Trump will not be present at tonight’s opener.

Trump will instead be overseeing a huge march-past in Washington called the Grand Military Parade (a great parade, the very best parade). Gianni, I’m sorry. By an odd coincidence it is also Trump’s birthday, which does at least raise the prospect of a smudged and woozy Infantino performing his own alarmingly sensual rendition of Happy Birthday Mr President on the half-time big screen in Miami.

On the day of Fifa’s opener there will also be 1,500 demonstrations across the US, including in Miami, under the banner No Kings, a movement that rejects the notion of Trump as a proto-regent in his wielding of power. Does this feel familiar, as if sport is again trying to tell you something, offering a frontrow seat at the circus?

It even feels right that this should be happening in Florida, a place built out of tax breaks and real estate finagling, a vast sunbaked fun palace, and now the green sunken hub of football. Let the games begin. There is, for all the absence of pre-energy, a lot more at stake here than a Tiffany trophy.

***

32 teams, 63 games, 11 cities … and Messi

The World Cup? I thought that was next year …

The 2026 World Cup is what you might know as the Proper World Cup, for national teams. This summer’s tournament is the Club World Cup, featuring some of the world’s best club sides such as Real Madrid, PSG and River Plate.

Didn’t that already exist?

It did – Manchester City are technically the holders. But Fifa likes a grossly expanded tournament, so here we are. Since the tournament started in 2000 (then known as the Club World Championship), it usually featured six or seven teams representing Fifa’s various confederations. The teams would play a few knockout games in half-full stadiums. The whole thing would be done in around 10 days, and very few people would remember who had won it by the time the following year’s edition came around.

Fifa decided fans wanted more of this and have expanded the tournament to 32 teams, who will play 63 games in 11 host cities across the United States over four weeks. Like the most recent World Cup, there will be a group stage with the best two teams from each of the eight groups progressing to the last-16 knockout stage.

We’ll see the best 32 teams in the world then?

Not exactly. The strongest club sides are based in Europe and South America but this is a global tournament, mainly made up of clubs who have won their respective continental championships over the past four years (so, say, recent winners of the Champions League get in from Europe).

There are more places for teams from stronger federations such as Europe’s Uefa (12 slots) and South America’s Conmebol (six slots) than weaker federations (Oceania’s OFC gets just one). There are some oddities to the qualifying process, too. The US got an extra slot as tournament hosts, meaning their domestic champion from 2024 would qualify. Most fans would say that would be the MLS Cup champion, which is decided after a post-season playoff competition (the 2024 champions were LA Galaxy). Instead, Fifa decided the team with the best regular-season record would qualify. That just happened to be Inter Miami, led by Lionel Messi, the most famous player in the world. Make of that what you will.

Another MLS team made it in slightly circuitous fashion. Fifa rules mean that two clubs with the same ownership can’t compete at the tournament. That meant Club Léon were deprived of their slot because another Mexican team at the tournament, Pachuca, are under the same ownership group. That led to a playoff between Los Angeles FC and Club América to decide Léon’s replacement, with LAFC winning.

And then there is Auckland City. The best two teams in New Zealand, Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix, play in Australia’s A-league, which is part of the Asian Football Confederation. That means Auckland City, as winners of the OFC Champions League, grabbed the one slot for Oceania.

The players must be excited about playing in a World Cup

Fifpro, the global players’ union, said adding another month to an already crowded calendar is a health risk. A top player in Europe will face having almost no rest in the summer for three consecutive years if they end up playing at Euro 2024, the 2025 Club World Cup and the 2026 World Cup. And the latter two tournaments will be played in the hottest months in the US.

What is the prize money?

The total prize pool for the tournament is $1bn (£735m). Just over half of that goes to the clubs just for being there; different teams have received differently-sized payouts for their participation, depending on where they hail from.

Oceania’s representative gets $3.58m just for showing up. African, Asian and North American clubs $9.55m. South American sides get $15.21m, while European teams will get anywhere from $12.81m to $38.19m, depending on what Fifa calls “sporting and commercial criteria” (in other words: how famous and good they are).

The remaining $425m is distributed based on performance in the tournament. Teams earn $2m for a win and $1m for a draw in the group stage, $7.5m for making the last 16, $13.1m for making a quarter-final, $21m for making a semi-final, $30m for making the final, and another $40m for lifting the trophy.

Where is it on TV?

Every game is streamed on Dazn. Channel 5 will show a selection of games, including 16 group-stage matches, four last-16 games, two quarter-finals, one semi-final and the final.

What are the opening fixtures?

Tomorrow 

Group A Al Ahly v Inter Miami, 1am, Palmeiras v Porto, 11pm; 
Group B PSG v Atlético Madrid, 8pm; 
Group C Bayern Munich v Auckland City, 5pm

Monday 

Group B Botafogo v Seattle Sounders, 3am; 
Group C Boca Juniors v Benfica, 11pm; 
Group D Chelsea v Los Angeles, 8pm

Tuesday 

Group D Flamengo v ES Tunis, 2am; 
Group E River Plate v Urawa Reds, 8pm; 
Group F Fluminense v Borussia Dortmund, 5pm, Ulsan HD v Mamelodi Sundowns, 11pm

Wednesday 
Group E Monterrey v Milan, 2am; 
Group G Man City v Wydad Casablanca, 5pm; 
Group H Real Madrid v Al Hilal, 8pm, Pachuca v Red Bull Salzburg, 11pm

***


JON PUTMAN/ ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES 
A tense welcome to Fifa’s jamboree Police on the streets 
of Los Angeles before a weekend of anticipated protests

Raids and fear loom large over Fifa’s grand launch

Governing body cannot avoid the dark political backdrop to its tournament opening as US authorities flex their muscles

The opening game is shadowed by the prospect of governor approved assault with a motor vehicle

Barney Ronay

‘When Donald Trump came in the laws just changed and it’s hard for immigrants now … you’ve got a lot of people being deported, people who have been in the United States for two decades. It’s not nice, it’s not right when someone who hasn’t committed a crime has to go back somewhere.

“I just don’t respect somebody like [Trump] that deports so many people and hurts so many families … this country was built on immigrants. Nobody’s from here.”

It seems unlikely this is the kind of hard political messaging Gianni Infantino was hoping to associate himself with when Fifa booked the New York rapper French Montana as its headline act at tonight’s Club World Cup opening ceremony, a global spectacular taking place against a background of unrest over Trump’s immigration and repatriation policies.

French Montana moved to New York from Morocco aged 13 and has been outspoken in his support for the rights of undocumented US immigrants, although his place on the political spectrum has been muddied a little this year by an unexpected appearance on the Lara Trump track No Days Off.

His comments in interviews in 2019 and 2018, and his presence at the centre of Fifa’s publicity for the launch night of its $1bn show, will provide a deeply uncomfortable reminder of the perils of fawning over divisive political leaders. Infantino has spent the past year energetically cosying up to the US president, attending his inauguration in a state of high excitement and even delaying Fifa’s annual meeting in order to follow Trump around a little longer on his visit to Qatar.

French Montana is at least in tune with the Fifa zeitgeist. Already this week the news that officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will be part of the security operation for tonight’s game between Al Ahly and Inter Miami has sparked widespread disquiet.

A year out from the World Cup that the US is sharing with Canada and Mexico, there is concern not only that supporters may stay away over fear of document checks and status wrangles, but that Fifa’s showpiece men’s club event is in danger of being piggybacked on as a political event by the Trump administration.

CBP has been openly promoting its role at Fifa’s tournament for the past few months under the hashtag #CBPXFIFA. This came to a head this week as it ended up deleting a Facebook post that stated its agents would be “suited and booted and ready to provide security for the first round of games”.

The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that Ice and CBP officers will be present at Club World Cup fixtures, saying: “All non-american citizens need to carry proof of their legal status.” This is not without recent precedent. CBP often operates at big sporting events, including February’s Super Bowl in New Orleans.

But it isn’t hard to see how this might be interpreted as containing an element of threat. Ice officers are being escorted around Los Angeles by the US national guard, a hugely controversial move that has contributed to the current unrest in the city.

CBP has also declined so far to address the reasons for the removal of its post about Fifa’s grand jamboree, which fuelled fears the event may be rolled into the aggressive enforcement of Trump’s immigration policy.

A glance at CBP’S X feed makes plain this is by no means a politically neutral entity. One post reads: “The alarming riots in L.A. which have put hundreds of law enforcement officers at risk, are precisely why the Big Beautiful Bill is so important.” Another states: “While rioters wave foreign flags and burn ours, our officers will always raise the stars and stripes with pride.” Approving references to Trump’s policies are intercut with remarks about “lies” from “the mainstream media and sanctuary politicians”. Questions will naturally be asked about whether this constitutes an appropriate hashtag partner for football’s apolitical governing body.

Infantino was asked this week about the presence of immigration agencies at Fifa’s launch party. His answer was characteristically vague, focusing instead on security issues. But there is concern on that front in Miami, fuelled by the chaos of the Copa América final between Argentina and Colombia at the same venue last year, which led to arrests, barriers rushed and a one-hour kick-off delay.

The Hard Rock has warned of “multiple security and ticket check points”, and the Miami Herald has unearthed a police video used as a training tool for the tournament in which a sergeant is heard saying: “If things go south, we get prepared, we get ready. For civil unrest and unruly fans, this will get us ready for those events.”

And Fifa is dipping its toe into some overheated waters here. Only this week the Trump administration explicitly instructed anything up to half a million Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came legally to the United States under a Biden-era programme to “leave immediately” if they have yet to make the step from “parole” to full status.

The state of heightened security has affected Fifa’s party. On Wednesday a luxury pleasure flotilla chartered by the TV station Telemundo and containing Fifa officials and the Miami-dade mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, was boarded by CBP officials in Biscayne Bay off the Miami coast. The event, staged to celebrate the approach of the World Cup, was abruptly cancelled.

Officials later stated the raid was a routine inspection that uncovered some safety violations. But the mayor has since described the incident as “deeply troubling” and told local media: “Ensuring that all community members feel safe and included is crucial to maintaining our county’s reputation as a welcoming destination for both residents and visitors.”

Tonight’s opening game (1am BST tomorrow in the UK) is now a source of multiple migraines for Infantino. Trump will be absent, required instead to oversee his own Grand Military Parade in Washington. While this is no doubt a bonedeep personal disappointment for Infantino, it will at least spare him the embarrassment of marrying up his headline act’s political statements with the capricious and easily offended commander-in-chief in the seat next to him.

The game also coincides with a day of nationwide anti-trump protests. Styled as the No Kings movement, a warning against the exercise of extreme executive power in the first year of Trump’s second term, the protests will elide naturally with unrest over the actions of Ice and CBP.

The wider Miami area will stage at least 10 No Kings events, including one half an hour’s drive from Infantino’s coronational seat at the Hard Rock Stadium, although it is unlikely Republican Miami-Dade will see anything like the scale of unrest in Los Angeles. As one Aventura man put it on Thursday morning: “This is Florida. We don’t truck with that shit here.”

This appears to be the politically sanctioned position. The state governor, Ron Desantis, speaking on the Rubin Report this week, took the extraordinary step of encouraging members of the public who feel threatened by protests on Club World Cup matchday one to drive through the crowds, an apparent extension of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. As Desantis put it: “If you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you.”

The tagline for the opening night of Fifa’s US mission is A New Era Begins. As things stand that new era will kick off against a rolling background of spot-check fear, off-message headline acts and an opening game shadowed by the prospect of governor-approved assault with a motor vehicle a few miles down the road. Over to you, Gianni.

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