Izuchukwu OkosiThe Premier League on Friday confirmed that they have not seen any formal proposals from FIFA about the expanded Club World Cup in 2025 or an expanded 2026 men’s World Cup.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is, however, adamant that despite the furore created by the English media, the tournament will go on as scheduled.
The Premier League in an official statement declared that they will continue to discuss with FIFA on the subject.
“The Premier League are open to continuing engagement with FIFA, via the World League’s Forum, to ensure there are no radical changes to the international calendar that will affect the domestic league structure and player welfare,” a statement from the Premier League said tersely.
They are expecting meaningful agreements to be reached with the leagues before anything is signed-off.
Infantino, who branded the Qatar World Cup as the “best ever”, revealed a number of decisions following a FIFA council meeting, including plans to launch a new friendly ‘World Series’ tournament to take place in even years involving four teams, each selected from four different confederations.
The FIFA president confirmed the 2022 Club World Cup will be held in Morocco from February 1 to 11 next year and will feature seven teams, including Real Madrid as European champions. The larger competition, set for 2025, will take place every four years.
The international match calendar will also be altered from 2025, with one extended break spanning four matches in late September and early October replacing two separate windows in September and October. The other windows in November, March and June would remain unchanged.
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The hosts for the men’s World Cup in 2030 will be decided in 2024 and the Women’s World Cup for 2031 will be decided in 2025. Infantino announced a desire to create a new women’s Club World Cup, a new Futsal Women’s World Cup and expand the Olympic Games Women’s tournament from 12 to 16 teams.
The proposals also include revising FIFA’s youth tournament inventory – including expanded annual Under-17 tournaments, both for boys and girls.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino further explained the format of the 32-team club tournament.
“The details of the location still need to be discussed but it has been agreed and decided that a 32-team Club World Cup tournament will go ahead making it like a World Cup.
“I don’t know what the British press says or doesn’t say, but I know what we’ve decided and that is that there will be a Club World Cup of 32 teams to be played every four years and the first edition will take place in 2025 in the summer.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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