Lionel Messi at the Club World Cup makes sense – but how he got there is ridiculous

FIFA isn’t hiding it anymore.

When you’re in desperate need of a big broadcast deal and some major American sponsors in the next few months, the time for subtlety has passed.

Lionel Messi Inter Miami have qualified — with the word qualified doing more heavy lifting than a skinflint picking up the bar tab after a big night out — for next summer’s new-fangled, massively-enlarged Club World Cup, to be played in the United States.

How and why have Lionel Messi Inter Miami been deemed worthy of a spot among the top 32 football clubs in the world? Why, by winning the 2024 Supporters’ Shield in MLS, of course!

And where is the first game of next summer’s tournament being held? In Miami, of course!

Inter Miami celebrate winning the Supporters’ Shield (Chris Arjoon/AFP via Getty Images)

If it all feels far too convenient, well, that’s because it is. Miami and Messi being involved in a worldwide tournament that is in aching need of being a financial success right out of the box makes sense for FIFA, but does it make sense to normal people?

By handing Miami a spot via the Supporters’ Shield, which is the trophy (OK, shield) handed to the MLS side with the best record over the regular season (but before the big end-of-season MLS Cup play-offs decide the champions), FIFA has shone a light on the legitimacy and authenticity of the new-look Club World Cup. Yes, set your faces to stunned.

To be fair to Miami, they have just broken the MLS record for most points won in a regular season, with 74 from 34 matches, a total reached on the final day of the campaign when they thrashed New England Revolution 6-2 with Messi scoring an 11-minute hat-trick off the bench and Luis Suarez netting twice.

It’s Miami’s first MLS silverware since joining the league as an expansion team in 2020, following on from their winning the Leagues Cup (a tournament for sides in MLS and Liga MX, the top division in Mexican club football) last year.

“You have shown that in the United States, you are consistently the best club on the field of play,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who was on the pitch at Miami’s home ground for the big Supporters’ Shield celebrations, said. “Therefore, I am proud to announce that, as one of the best clubs in the world, you are deserved participants in the new FIFA Club World Cup 2025.”

Could the first new-look Club World Cup really have taken place in the USA without Messi? (Chris Arjoon/AFP via Getty Images)

Whether you think Miami should be shoehorned into the tournament or not, there are two obvious points to take issue with from those quotes.

1. Miami haven’t proved they are “consistently the best club” in the United States. They’ve definitely proved they’re the best club in the Eastern Conference of MLS, which is only half the United States (and a couple of bits of Canada). Yes, they went unbeaten in their six league games this season against Western Conference teams, but they only won three of them. It all feels a bit like saying Celtic have proved they’re the best side in the United Kingdom by winning the Scottish title.
2. “One of the best clubs in the world”, Gianni, really? They might have some elderly legends playing for them, but if you can’t guarantee they’d beat, say, Crystal Palace in a one-off tie tomorrow, they don’t get that moniker.

Miami become the 31st club to reach the Club World Cup and the only ones to qualify solely via a domestic league. The other 30 so far have got in via continent-wide competitions or rankings among teams from said continent. In basic terms, either win a confederation tournament or have a good, consistent record in competitions involving sides from more than one nation.

Africa (by way of the CAF Champions League) has four teams going to the Club World Cup, as does Asia (AFC Champions League). Europe has 12 (UEFA Champions League), the North and Central America and the Caribbean region has four via the CONCACAF Champions League, South America (CONMEBOL Libertadores) has five and there is one from OFC via the continent’s ranking, namely Auckland City, and one from the host country, which is Miami.

How will the 32nd and final team qualify? Will FIFA give it to the Disney+ All Stars? Maybe a Mohammed bin Salman Select XI?

Well, no, it’ll be the 2024 Copa Libertadores champions, joining its winners from 2021 (Palmeiras), 2022 (Flamengo), 2023 (Fluminense) and the two highest-ranking clubs in the CONMEBOL confederation, River Plate and Boca Juniors. Fine. That works.

Even if the same criteria means Chelsea qualify because they won the 2021 Champions League final, a triumph which was that long ago it involved Roman Abramovich, Thomas Tuchel (four Chelsea managers ago), Timo Werner and Olivier Giroud, there is validation because they won Europe’s biggest tournament.

And even if the ranking criteria means Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg, who have lost their first two Champions League fixtures this season 3-0 and 4-0, somehow sneak in despite only progressing beyond the Champions League group stage on one occasion in the past four years, again, so be it. You be you, FIFA.

This isn’t a gripe about a team from the host country being handed a place in the competition. Far from it. There should be a home team in the tournament, just like the host nation is rightly guaranteed a place in the World Cup. FIFA couldn’t guarantee there would be a home team via CONCACAF (as it transpires, Seattle Sounders are involved having won the confederation’s Champions Cup in 2022), so to state from the outset that a U.S. side would be there isn’t an issue. Except they only announced yesterday that the Supporters’ Shield-winning team would qualify.

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How else should they have done it? A wildcard place to ensure some U.S. involvement wouldn’t have been unreasonable at all.

This is common in tennis, where top players who may not have a high enough ranking to reach one of the four Grand Sam events for whatever reason, such as a long-term injury, can be handed a place in Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. Goran Ivanisevic once won Wimbledon as a wildcard and Andy Murray and endless Brits have been handed places at the London tournament over the years. It boosts crowd numbers and TV audience figures.

Chucking Miami into the Club World Cup for the same reason, as a wildcard who would bring in bigger attendances and attract more eyes to maybe watch Messi versus old foes Real Madrid or his former Barcelona mentor Pep Guardiola and Manchester City, wouldn’t feel particularly wrong.

But by ham-fistedly making up the rules and giving the Supporters’ Shield team a spot instead of the MLS Cup winners (which Miami may well go on to win in early December) or maybe a one-off game between the Shield and Cup winners if they are different, you open yourself up to ridicule. Even more so when you’ve pre-emptively dubbed this the “greatest, most inclusive and merit-based global club competition” to have existed.

A competition that is already struggling for respectability just took another reputational hit.

(Top photos: Lionel Messi and Gianni Infantino; Getty Images)