FIFA, the Club World Cup and the scrap for training bases among major clubs

The revamped Club World Cup has presented no shortage of obstacles for FIFA.

Originally conceptualized in 2018, when footballs world governing body discussed a 24-team tournament to take place in China, it was delayed by the onset of a global pandemic.

Covid-19 placed the idea on ice until FIFA president Gianni Infantino, in a press conference before the mens World Cup final in December 2022, suddenly announced that a 32-team tournament of the best teams in the world would take place in 2025.

FIFA also decided, without a bidding process, that the United States would host the first incarnation of the tournament.

A grueling and bruising negotiation process followed, with venue owners skeptical of a new tournament featuring, in some cases, teams from around the world who would be unfamiliar to local American markets.

Sites scattered across 10 U.S.

states were finally announced in autumn last year.

Advertisement Doubts also clouded the competition due to FIFAs perceived sluggishness in securing a broadcaster particularly when discussions with Apple tailed off and sponsors for the tournament.

As a result, FIFA could not give clubs a clear indication of the prize money that would be allocated.

Sources familiar with the situation, who, like others in this piece, spoke to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity to protect working relationships, said that a small number of European clubs even considered walking away from the competition in the second half of 2024.

Yet many of these problems were finally fixed in December, when FIFA secured a $1 billion (750 million) global broadcast deal from DAZN.

FIFA also signed multiple sponsorship agreements and the competing clubs were finally assuaged last week when FIFA unveiled a $1 billion prize fund .

The major off-pitch battles are nearly over but, in recent months, another challenge has presented itself: where teams will train during a competition that will be played across the U.S.

On the surface, that may sound pretty vanilla, but in global footballs competitive world of snakes and ladders, it has led to no shortage of mischief and competitive spirit as European clubs, FIFA and American sports facilities seek to flex their negotiating muscles.

For FIFA, it is a battle that relates not only to the Club World Cup but also the mens World Cup next summer, as 48 national teams will require facilities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The U.S.

is home to arguably the finest collection of training sites in the world, as even colleges have resources and facilities that would be the envy of many professional teams.

In 2018, FIFA published the bid book from the American, Mexican and Canadian joint proposal to host the 2026 World Cup.

It read: Our bid has secured 150 training facilities, providing FIFA and the team delegations with a range of qualified facilities that should please any coach, player, and referee participating in the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Advertisement These included numerous universities and elite sporting environments, such as Harvard University and Stanford University, as well as a litany of pro teams.

However, The Athletic has been told by those familiar with the bid that this was never contractual or binding in any way, meaning FIFA needs to negotiate directly with each venue to secure training bases during the competition.

The process for the Club World Cup has been no less challenging, particularly as leading European soccer teams and players expect the VIP treatment they have become accustomed to when traveling stateside during glamorous preseason tours, while FIFA itself is seeking to provide best-in-class operations.

Despite a FIFA spokesperson insisting in a statement that cooperation has been good and that almost all of the team base camps have been finalised, The Athletic can reveal: For several months, FIFA has been in talks with owners of numerous facilities to secure training facilities.

There are two types: first, the team base similar to a hotel that will be used as the main training site for teams during the competition.

Second, there are the facilities that will be used when teams travel to a different location and wish to train on the day before a match.

For example, Manchester City are in discussions with Lynn University, a private school in Boca Raton, Fl., to use its facilities as their base camp, but when they play a match in Philadelphia, they may use the setup of the Philadelphia Eagles.

The base of this years Super Bowl winners will be available to teams as a training site the day before knockout games.

Lincoln Financial Field, the NFL teams stadium, is due to host a round-of-16 game and a quarterfinal.

FIFA has created a brochure, distributed to competing Club World Cup teams, of potential training bases and hotels across the U.S., but it also gave clubs the option of directly contracting facilities themselves.

FIFA has told clubs it is prepared to pay up to $15,000 as a daily rate to training sites, a figure that varies depending on the quality of the facilities and location.

Should a club decide to go it alone, FIFA will reimburse them up to $15,000.

Additionally, FIFA will only cover the costs for a base outside of their brochure for the group phase teams are expected to foot the bill if they persist on a location not in the brochure for the knockout stages.

FIFA then provides a daily contribution during the tournament of $38,500, which is intended to cover the cost of an average traveling party for their stays in five-star resorts, food, travel and associated costs.

This works out at around $700 per person per day for 55 people.

While this may sound generous to the ordinary fan, a traveling group for a monthlong tournament or when European teams head stateside in preseason can go well beyond 100 people, as clubs take players, coaching staff, medical experts, support staff, a communications team, sponsorship personnel and the charitable arms of their teams.

This is particularly true of those seeking to activate events for partners and fans in local markets.

As such, some teams believe FIFA should be providing a higher daily contribution to the costs, while others consider the deal to be broadly fair.

Advertisement The $15,000 daily budget, which is in the same ballpark FIFA is considering for the World Cup in 2026, has caused consternation at certain sites, which have also been surprised by the extent of FIFAs demands.

This is because elite teams expect vast swathes of facilities to be ring-fenced and feature a significant private security presence, which in the U.S.

can quickly escalate in value.

According to slides seen by The Athletic , FIFA wants the security costs to be eaten by training bases as part of the daily rental fee, rather than as an additional payment.

There are further complications, most significantly in the fact that FIFA is requesting that bases not allow any use of the training fields in the 28 days before teams arrival, which is usually five days before their first game.

FIFA calls this the Pitch Protection Period, and one college told The Athletic that FIFA had even set out initially requesting the field not be used for the three months before teams arrived.

This is a challenge for colleges and sports teams, whose own players may require the facilities.

They may also have lucrative summer coaching programs on the calendar.

Crucially, FIFA executives have told sites they are only prepared to pay a daily rate while the tournament is ongoing the preceding 28 days, when the field is out of use to protect the pitch, does not yield a direct financial return from FIFA, nor can it be leased out to anyone else.

This is one of the factors turning away leading colleges, particularly those with huge endowment funds that do not need to bow to FIFAs demands for what may turn out to be marginal profit.

This is further underlined when we consider that FIFA has made clear its rental fees will not cover any pitch improvements that may be necessary to host teams, while training sites are also asked to provide clean sites, which means removing their sponsors to make way for FIFAs partners.

All of these considerations, analyzing potential benefits set against costs, came into play when Princeton University, situated in New Jersey, held discussions with FIFA over its training facilities being used during the World Cup in 2026.

Princeton eventually stepped away, with FIFA sources telling The Athletic that the construction of a quantum physics building adjacent to the soccer field meant that the university could not guarantee its services in any case.

Advertisement Harvard, despite being listed as one of the training sites secured in the 2026 bid book, also stepped away.

The Athletic has been told that many of the aforementioned issues were considered by Harvard, while FIFA sources indicated that Harvards move to artificial turf also discouraged participation.

The competition does not kick off for another three months but the intensity between clubs is already heating up and all over training bases.

Take, for example, the case of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Italian club Inter are extremely fond of the facilities, partly because of the desirable Los Angeles location but also because they spent preseason at UCLA in 2009 before their treble-winning season under Jose Mourinho .

Inters group phase this summer will be on the west coast, where they have two games in Seattle and one in L.A.

at the Rose Bowl.

However, FIFA has established a model to give preference to training sites based on the number of games a team will play in a location.

Given Atletico Madrid and Monterrey both have two games at the Rose Bowl, which is fewer than 25 miles from UCLA, they would be given preference ahead of Inter.

The negotiations only get trickier.

UCLA also asked FIFA to cover the cost of relaying one of its soccer fields.

FIFA declined.

Inter then contacted UCLA directly and negotiated the base for themselves, bypassing FIFA and agreeing to relay the field.

UCLA, having also struck a financially superior deal for itself, then requested to be removed from the FIFA brochure.

UCLA was one of only two Los Angeles facilities in FIFAs brochure.

This led Monterrey to be diverted to Loyola Marymount University, while Atletico Madrid are now in independent conversations with the LA Memorial Coliseum, a historic venue in the Exposition Park area that will host its third Olympic Games in 2028.

Inter did not respond to a request for comment and FIFA did not wish to comment on the matter.

Advertisement In an extensive statement, UCLA recreation director Erinn McMahan confirmed to The Athletic that it had requested a sizable financial contribution toward the maintenance of the field as a condition for using its facilities.

The director added that UCLA is seeking to be involved in the 2026 World Cup and the Olympics and Paralympics in 2028.

McMahan said: UCLA maintains world-class facilities and the month of June and first two weeks of July typically represent our best window of opportunity to replace field surfaces before our womens and mens soccer teams report to their training camps in late July and early August.

Each year, we work with event producers, national federations, and/or professional teams on a timeline that allows us to provide fields that meet international standards.

The timing of this years Club World Cup, combined with UCLAs academic calendar, meant that our typical maintenance window of four to six weeks would be reduced to two.

This limited our field maintenance options to just one: a full field resod a replacement of the existing worn grass with new sod, at a deep enough depth to allow for the briefest grown-in period possible.

When projects of this type have been required in the past, or requested by professional teams, weve been fortunate to have relationships predicated on open communication and mutual understanding of respective priorities and needs.

This year was no different.

Several teams conducted site visits, as did FIFA, and were aware that we wouldnt be able to host a team without their financial support for a field resod, particularly because a team using the field in June would be the driver for and primary beneficiary of what would be a $300,000 project.

A similar situation played out at the Philadelphia Union facilities, which are set to be a base camp for the 2026 World Cup and appeared in the brochure for club teams this summer.

However, Chelsea contacted the MLS franchise directly and are in negotiations to secure an agreement independently of FIFA, with the Union requesting to be removed from the brochure.

This meant Chelsea were not at risk of the preference lottery Brazils Flamengo, like Chelsea, also have two games in Philadelphia.

Flamengo will instead now train at Stockton University, around 50 miles from Lincoln Financial Field.

Chelsea and the Union declined to comment, but Union sources said there is no completed deal.

Advertisement Others have been more deferential toward FIFAs preference system.

Real Madrid, for example, liked Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida, but Real have games in Miami, Charlotte and Philadelphia, while Argentine team Boca Juniors have two games at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

This means Boca take preference under the FIFA model, so they will train there if FIFA and Barry can conclude an agreement, which has not yet been signed but is advancing.

Madrid will instead train at a location north of Miami in Palm Springs.

Several other clubs have acted independently of the FIFA brochure.

Paris Saint-Germain are set to base themselves at the University of California, Irvine, with the college confirming to The Athletic that it is working towards agreements.

Manchester Citys deal with Lynn is also being negotiated independently of FIFA, as is the case for Porto, who are in conversations with Rutgers University in New Jersey for the group phase.

Juventus, meanwhile, have decided to base themselves in West Virginia for the majority of their group phase, with their first two matches in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.

They are training at the Greenbrier Sports Performance Center and its associated resort.

The Greenbrier was founded in 1778 and hosted five sitting presidents before the American Civil War.

Most famously, the Greenbrier was secretly enlisted by the U.S.

government to act as an emergency relocation base an underground nuclear bunker codenamed Project Greek Island which could house the entire U.S.

Congress in the event of conflict, as was uncovered by The Washington Post in 1992.

Elsewhere, Borussia Dortmund are to train during the group phase at Inter Miamis facilities, despite the MLS side also being in the competition.

Bundesliga rivals Bayern Munich are stationed at a site in Orlando close to Walt Disney World.

Benfica are also in Florida, training at the Tampa Waterpark Sports Complex.

Brazils Botofogo will be stationed at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Advertisement A FIFA spokesperson said: FIFA is pleased to have offered a mixed model, allowing clubs to choose their preferred location from the options provided or make their own arrangements, understanding potential existing relationships.

Cooperation has been good and almost all of the camps have been finalised.

The remaining challenge for FIFA is tying down facilities for the latter stages of the competition, when teams will come to New Jersey for the semifinals and final.

Rutgers and the Pingry School are among the bases being targeted although some ambitious European teams, presuming an advance into the latter stages, are already reaching out directly to sites to get ahead and make their own reservations as the battle for bases continues.

(Top photo: Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.