According to AS (Spain): “FIFA has encountered many difficulties in finding sponsorship and selling television rights for the Club World Cup 2025, while the tournament is only about 8 months away from starting. Choosing Inter Miami, with famous player Messi and close friend Suarez still playing at the top level and shining brightly, could help the world football body solve the problem it is facing.”
Choosing Inter Miami is only partly convincing, as this team has just won the Supporters’ Shield (MLS – American professional soccer league). They need to win the MLS Cup in the upcoming playoff round from October 22 to December 7 to be the deciding factor, after many previous reports revealed that FIFA reserved a spot for the home team through this championship.
FIFA has announced the decision to hold the new version of the 2025 Club World Cup in the US, with 32 of the world’s top clubs competing from June 15 to July 13, 2025. The tournament is also a test of the ability to organize the 2026 World Cup in the US with the two co-hosts Mexico and Canada.
However, after Inter Miami won the Supporters’ Shield two rounds early, FIFA decided to choose the team chaired and co-owned by David Beckham as the 31st team to participate in the tournament as the host team.
The 2025 Club World Cup is only waiting for one more spot from the 2024 Copa Libertadores champion (South America) to have a full 32 spots. Previously, top European clubs such as Man City, Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Chelsea… all won the right to participate. In Asia, there is Neymar’s Al Hilal Club, South America has famous clubs such as Palmeiras (Brazil), River Plate and Boca Juniors (both Argentina)…
Unfortunately, Ronaldo’s Al Nassr club is absent due to an unsuccessful performance in the AFC Champions League last season. Meanwhile, Messi, Suarez, Busquets and Jordi Alba now have the opportunity to compete again with top opponents in European football, even though they have been playing in the US for the last years of their careers for more than a year now.
FIFA also said that Inter Miami will compete in the 2025 Club World Cup as the host team, and will play the opening match on June 15, 2025 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, which has a capacity of up to 65,326 seats.
“On June 15, 2025, the eyes of the world will be on the Hard Rock Stadium, watching Messi and his teammates bring the Inter Miami fairy tale to the world!”, FIFA’s announcement said.
The presence of Messi and his teammates at Inter Miami will certainly have an effect in stirring up global interest in the 2025 Club World Cup, according to AS .
Meanwhile, for Messi and Suarez, participating in the 2025 Club World Cup with Inter Miami will be another highlight in their careers. This pair of 37-year-old players had a season with extremely impressive scoring statistics in MLS, with 20 goals each.
Both also added 10 and 7 assists in the 2024 Major League Soccer season, making Inter Miami the first club to have two players score at least 20 goals in a single MLS season. Messi is also the first player in MLS history to score a hat-trick and assist as a second-half substitute.
Messi is currently the player with the most goals for FC Barcelona (672 goals), the most goals for the Argentina national team (112 goals), and the most goals for FC Inter Miami with 33 goals, surpassing the record of striker Leonardo Campana (32 goals).
