The first edition of FIFA's reimagined Club World Cup has just kicked off and is already being severely criticized, most vocally by someone speaking on behalf of some of Europe's largest soccer clubs. The president of La Liga, Javier Tebas, not only reconfirmed his opposition to the tournament but went directly to the point: "Eliminating it. My goal is to see that there's no longer a Club World Cup, that's clear to me."
The comment, made at a Spanish league celebration function, exposed a rift between FIFA and league officials in the country. It was a political dig at a competition that is fighting to find its position in the international arena.
Is it a serious or friendly competition?
The competition lacks the seriousness of an actual tournament, Tebas said. "I did not watch any game. Well, I watched a little bit of Chelsea yesterday and it was like a summer friendly match. I did not watch intensity, but lots of running, at least the 25 minutes that I watched," he continued.
Effectively, he questioned what the purpose of the event was. If representatives of the league themselves fail to see any technical merits in the tournament, how will the common fan be influenced?
Javier Tebas doesn't speak to speak. President of La Liga since 2013, he is among the most vociferous supporters of European-level control of finances in football and autonomy of national leagues from the growing power of UEFA and FIFA. When he asserts "there are no dates," he is giving voice to a real concern: the top football calendar is a jigsaw with missing pieces. Adding another competition in the midst of chaos, with intercontinental travel, is at least inopportune.
The central theme
The competition has no place in today's ecosystem. "There is no necessity of one more competition which is shuffling money to a set of clubs and players and is arriving from somewhere. There is no money here. We have to maintain the ecosystem and pull it out. Go back to what it was before," he argued. That is, he regards the Club World Cup as a foreign body, a more commercial than sporting idea, and one that causes havoc to the fabric of the calendar instead of providing added value.
Some say that Tebas is only concerned with the interests of La Liga and that is true. But the fact is, with two Spanish clubs involved, the complaint is damning. Atlético de Madrid, to take a specific example, were beaten 4–0 on the first night of Group B. Real Madrid, now coached by Xabi Alonso, face Al-Hilal on Wednesday.
But Tebas was not going easy on his own either. In his view, the whole tournament is expendable, a waste of time in the middle of a congested schedule. FIFA, on its behalf, is betting huge with this new version of the Club World Cup. More teams, more games, and ambitions to make the product global mean that the governing body is trying to turn the tournament more into a World Cup-like event with national teams. And with individuals such as Tebas making such statements, the competition begins the game short-handed in credibility terms. We'll just have to wait and see.