Europe’s top-flight clubs will share half of the $250m (£185m) solidarity pot from the 2025 Club World Cup, with Fifa and the European Football Clubs (EFC) understood to be close to an agreement on a 50-50 split between Europe and the rest of the world. The fund was set aside to ensure the money-spinning competition contributes to football’s wider ecosystem, and it will be distributed once the deal has been ratified. Confirmation is expected after approval by the Fifa council, which is scheduled to meet in Zurich on 15 October. EFC will stage its general assembly in Copenhagen on Tuesday.
The EFC had sought a share of just over 60% for its members but compromised after Fifa insisted on a more equal global distribution. Under the proposed arrangement, a portion of the $125m allocated to Europe will go to all top-division European clubs that were not involved in the Club World Cup. The amounts will vary depending on the number of seasons a side competed at that level between 2021 and 2024. A further amount will go to clubs with the best performance in Uefa club competitions during that period, again provided they did not play in the US-staged tournament in 2025. That raises the likelihood of clubs receiving wildly varying payments, with Liverpool, the Champions League runners-up in 2022, among those in line to benefit at the higher end of the scale.
The drawn-out wait for the solidarity money had caused widespread frustration among clubs that did not participate in the tournament, particularly those from smaller leagues, for whom the funds can present a welcome lifeline. The Club World Cup winners, Chelsea, have long since benefited from an £84m payout from the £740m set aside as prize money. Chelsea beat Paris Saint-Germain in the July 2025 final, with Cole Palmer the inspiration behind their victory.
The saga has unfolded against a backdrop of tension between EFC and Fifa. In August, EFC threatened that it would not cooperate with future Club World Cups if Gianni Infantino did not withdraw his Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme. In the same letter, EFC said the lack of a solution on Club World Cup solidarity payments was ‘of serious disappointment to EFC and our member clubs’. A joint venture between EFC and Fifa, intended to involve managing the commercial side of global club competitions, remains on the table but is unlikely to be signed in the near future given the turbulence surrounding world football’s leadership.
Infantino addressed the EFC general assembly in Rome last year, but a repeat performance is not deemed likely this time given the prospect of a direct encounter with adversaries such as the Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin. Infantino spent Monday attempting to boost his standing in Europe by travelling to Riga for the opening of new offices at the Latvian Football Association. The Fifa secretary general, Mattias Grafström, is expected to be among the delegates in Copenhagen.