The FIFA Club World Cup kicks off on Saturday, with the United States acting as hosts for a competition of the top local teams on the globe, like Real Madrid and River Plate. The expanded tournament will act as a dress rehearsal for next year’s World Cup, the country-on-country tourney that will take place across North America. However, political issues, as well as concerns about audience numbers, are putting a cloud over the competition.
32: There will be 32 football clubs from six continents competing in the Club World Cup, including 12 teams from Europe and six from South America. Inter Miami, a team that counts Lionel Messi in its ranks, earned a free slot as host.
25: The Club World Cup has been running on-and-off for 25 years, dating back to the first competition in 2000. However, this is the first time the tournament will be of such a large magnitude – it usually just comprises seven teams and lasts 10 days. The last seven Club World Cups were hosted in the Middle East and North Africa.
$1 billion: The streaming platform DAZN – owned by former oligarch Sir Len Blavatnik – paid $1 billion for the rights to broadcast the tournament. In an effort to maximize the audience, the platform will air the games for free. $1 billion is, incidentally, also the amount of prize money that will be split among the participants, double the kitty from the last World Cup.
0: US President Donald Trump’s new travel ban, which covers 12 countries, won’t affect any of the players, after the White House made an exemption for athletes and coaches. Admittedly, very few of the players are from one of the countries on the banned list – Mehdi Taremi, Inter Milan’s Iranian striker, is the highest-profile player from a banned nation. Yet Trump’s order defies FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s declaration, made during a White House meeting in May, that “the world is welcome in America.” There’s no exception for the soccer fans from these 12 countries.