Hello, everybody, and welcome to Soccer 101.

My name is Taylor Rockwell, and on this week's episode, we're taking a deeper look at the Club World Cup. It's everyone's favorite tournament, and by everyone, I mean Gianni Infantino and pretty much Gianni Fantino. We've discussed this tournament in the past. Today, we're looking at its history, present format, and future evolutions. I think we're going to spend a lot of time on what it will look like going forward, joining me to do so as a man who can't wait for the 128 team iteration launching in 2035, I assume.

It's Graham, Ruffin. Graham, that sound about right to you.

Hello, Taylor Rockwell. I'm laughing, but purely out of fear that that kind of sounds like a thing

that might happen in 2035. Yeah, the Club World Cup is a weird competition.

I watched the semi-final between Uroa Red Diamonds and Man City this year's competition.

Erling Halland, who obviously is coming back from injury, he was on the bench and honestly

looked completely bored watching this game from the bench, which wasn't the greatest

endorsement of the tournament. Man City were also comfortably winning, so he had reason to be enthused.

But he was not, and his face gave the game away.

Do you feel like, if we're jumping ahead a little bit and if we're giving Infantino the benefit

of the doubt,

do you feel like that boredom, that look of boredom on Erling Holland's face is why he wants to sort of

reinvigorate this tournament and change the format a bit?

Because it does always feel like inevitably we're going to get the European champion versus

either South America or maybe Africa, maybe AFC,

but for the most part, it's going to be a European champion and then it's going to be a European club winning it for the most part. So I do wonder if there's an element here of Infantino seeing that and thinking like, yeah, we got to freshen this one up because it's the same thing every time. I don't think that enters his thinking at all. No, it's just money. It's money and its political control is the thing within Fantino.

So we'll probably come on to this a little bit. I don't think that enters his thinking at all. No, it's money. It's money and it's political control as the thing within Fantino.

So we'll probably come on to this a little bit later on.

But things like the expanded World Cup, the international World Cup, people might say, well, you know, it's lowering the barrier for entry for smaller countries and that is potentially a good thing.

Those countries then give Gianni Infantino their votes the next time there's an election and it keeps him in power. So the more people you keep happy, the smaller countries, you know, small countries have the same number of votes in these things as big countries. If you keep more of them happy, they give you more of their votes. So I think, honestly, I don't think that, I don't think he is thinking, how can we make the Club World Cup a better sporting spectacle or event? I think he's thinking, how can we create more money and how can I stay in power for longer? Frankly, I think that's his thought process. I do think it was in Fontina when he first ran, who like one of his campaign promises was to give every federation five million dollars that's like discretionary funds and it's like ah politics cool awesome it's not it's not a bribe if you just see it in the media exactly if you say discretionary funds then it sounds legit and totally worthwhile and towards a purpose instead of just please vote for me but you know what we're not here to talk about politics, though inevitably we will again. We're here to talk about the Club World Cup and I'm excited to do so because, Graham, I am still confused by this thing, specifically the changes that are coming and how qualification will work. But we don't need to talk about that yet. Let's first talk about what the Club World Cup actually is. Take it away, Graham. Yeah, so the club world is exactly what the name suggests, sort of. So it's a competition for clubs around the world.

But to be honest, it's a bit more like a club confederation's cup if people remember that competition

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