While Jurgen Klopp’s focus on Sunday was trained purely on Liverpool’s Premier League showdown against Manchester United, news stemming from another continent may have left him breathing a sigh of relief.
At the FIFA Council in Saudi Arabia over the weekend, the qualification criteria for the expanded 2025 Club World Cup were confirmed (fifa.com).
Europe’s 12 representatives will consist of the Champions League winners from 2020/21 to this season, along with the eight best-ranked clubs on the UEFA coefficient who are subsequently eligible to participate.
Despite Liverpool being near the head of the queue when it comes to the latter pathway, no country will have more than two participants unless a third club from that nation were to win the continental tournament.
Chelsea and Manchester City have qualified by virtue of their most recent European triumphs, while Arsenal could get in if they go the distance in this season’s Champions League.
As pointed out by Dave Powell for the Liverpool Echo, if Pep Guardiola’s side had triumphed over the Blues in the 2021 final in Porto, LFC would’ve been involved in the Club World Cup through the UEFA coefficient route, as City would’ve been the only English winners of Europe’s flagship competition in the qualifying period.
Although missing out on the expanded Club World Cup will deny Liverpool the chance of benefitting from a potential £50m windfall (The Guardian), Klopp may well be glad that FIFA’s criteria will see his team excluded.
The Reds boss has been quite vocal on the subject of his players having minimal downtime between matches, especially for those travelling outside of Europe and back again on international duty, as has happened three times already since the start of this season.
It seems no coincidence that the number of injuries across the 20 Premier League clubs has shot up this term, with footballers being asked to navigate an increasingly loaded schedule of games, many of which can involve travelling abroad.
Even with the prize money on offer from the new Club World Cup, Klopp surely won’t be sorry that Liverpool will get the summer of 2025 off instead of flying to the USA for the month-long event, especially as many of his squad could be involved in international tournaments (such as Euro 2024) next year.
We didn’t know it at the time, but Chelsea might have done us a favour by winning that Champions League final against Man City three seasons ago. Frankly, we’re better off not having any part in FIFA’s latest fatigue-inducing cash cow.
📖 Anfield Annals: John Smith – Liverpool’s Red Knight and Most Successful Chairman