This Newsletter Will Cure Your Post-World Cup Blues 🥳
Infantino's controversial Club World Cup plans explained + our favourite moments from the 2022 World Cup.
Happy Holidays everyone!
Are you missing the World Cup already?
Luckily, it’s only 1263 days until the next edition.
That’s actually the shortest-ever gap between two World Cups, thanks to FIFA’s decision to move this year’s tournament to the end of the year.
And yet, that’s still a really long wait.
The head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has realised this too and come up with a controversial plan for an entirely new World Cup.
In a recent press conference, Infantino announced that FIFA would be organising a new 32-team Club World Cup in 2025.
Wait, a Club World Cup, what does that even mean?
You are probably familiar with the term as it is already used for the yearly tournament organised between the winners of the various Champions Leagues from the six Confederations.
Last year, UEFA Champions League winners Chelsea defeated Copa Libertadores winners Palmeiras to take the title. This year, Real Madrid will take on 6 other club sides from across the World in the 10-day tournament in Morocco.
Under Infantino’s plans, this existing tournament will be scrapped in favor of an expanded 32-team competition that will be hosted in a new country every four years.
This will supposedly be a summer tournament, taking place after the regular season has finished, and Infantino wants to invite all of the biggest club sides on the planet to participate.
While the prospect of European powerhouses like Real Madrid and Bayern taking on the best clubs from around the world is exciting, it’s a little odd that Infantino has decided to announce the plan so early.
In reality, there is no official agreement between FIFA and the various Confederations that would allow this tournament to go ahead, and there has been significant negative pushback.
FIFPRO, the union that represents footballers globally, has raised concerns that an extra competition will put unnecessary stress on the welfare of players.
Various leagues and clubs, including most of UEFA, have echoed these concerns, and still hold the ultimate decision on whether they attend this new competition.
UEFA itself is actually a little scared that a new competition could rival the Champions League for the unofficial title of ‘greatest competition in club football.’
But at the end of the day, this is just the beginning of a negotiation, and the final decision will be heavily influenced by money.
And it’s for that reason that Infantino is probably confident that he will eventually get his way. Sponsors will pay big bucks for this type of international competition, and FIFA is more than happy to funnel some of that extra cash in the direction of the clubs in return for their support.
Current reports suggest that at least $180 million will be up for grabs in prize money, a figure that will only increase as the hype builds.
🏆 World Cup Round-Up.
🥳 With the 2022 World Cup having come to an end, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to take you through some of our key moments of the tournament.
First up it’s Budweiser.
Much like Argentina, the beer brand also had a rough start to the World Cup thanks to a Middle Eastern nation. Just days before the first kick, Qatar revoked permission for alcohol to be sold in stadiums. This left Budweiser with millions of cans of beers it couldn’t sell.
Despite the setback, Budweiser wasn’t completely frozen out of the World Cup. In fact, they still sponsored the Man of the Match award, which ensured that their Budweiser-branded trophies would be pictured with the world’s best players and posted all over the internet.
That’s a nice idea, but things like this don’t always turn out exactly as intended…
While the brand did get plenty of photos with Messi, it also got some rather unfortunate photos.
First off, there is this hilarious photo of Kai Havertz picking up his award after Germany were knocked out of the World Cup:
Then there is the fact that Mbappé decided to intentionally hide the Budweiser logo when picking up his awards, a move that gained far more traction than the Budweiser campaign:
Why did he do this? Check out the YouTube short we made explaining everything.
🏟 Next up, we have to give a shoutout to the fans.
While none of the stadiums were ever full, you can’t fault the passion of the fans that did make the trip to Qatar.
For example, this Morocco fan, who decided to put aside country rivalries and join the Senegal fans as they danced in the stands.
He did this at multiple Senegal games and became pretty famous on social media.
We also can’t forget the fans back home. Specifically, the Argentinian fans who turned out in their millions to celebrate their country lifting the World Cup.
The party got so intense that the Argentinian players on the open-top bus tour were evacuated on helicopters.
🏆 The biggest winner of this World Cup is Lionel Messi…
With seven goals and three assists, Messi returned to his prime form and shrugged off any suggestions that he was entering the sunset years of his career.
With Ronaldo exiting in the Quarterfinals, many on social media were suggesting that Messi’s triumph was enough to hand him the title of ‘Greatest of All Time.’
While that debate will likely rumble on for many years, there is no doubt that Messi’s stock has risen thanks to this tournament.
What better example of this than the fact that his Instagram post after the final has become the most liked piece of content in social media history, overtaking an image of an egg and several posts by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Messi’s resurgence has also been good news for sponsor Adidas, who took full advantage of the hype around Messi with some brilliant advertising.
First, there is this advert where Messi has a kick about with younger versions of himself from previous World Cups.
After Argentina’s triumph in the final, Adidas decided to re-use images from the advert to create a 3D billboard in Dubai, which has gone viral on social media.
Considering that all eyes were on Messi and Adidas, you could argue that Nike has lost out. After all, a Nike team was defeated by an Adidas team in the final. But when looking at the bigger picture, we would argue it’s Nike that has truly taken over the World Cup.
Check out our latest video on YT for an in-depth explanation: