Football’s world governing body Fifa and tech giant Apple are in advanced stages to seal an agreement for global media rights to the revamped Club World Cup.
The development, first reported by The New York Times, would see at least the bulk of next summer’s first edition of the revamped quadrennial club competition put behind a paywall.
Apple would seek to draw customers into its wider product ecosystem through the marketing halo the tournament would provide and also, to a lesser extent, drive long-term subscriptions to its Apple TV+ subscription streaming service.
The deal, thought to be close to finalisation, is for the first expanded Club World Cup, which will be played from June 15 to July 13, 2025, in the United States.
The tournament will increase from its current seven-team format to a multi-group tournament featuring 32 teams, played every four years. Fifa will continue to hold an annual global club tournament, called the Intercontinental Cup, in which the winner of the Uefa Champions League plays the winner of playoff rounds between clubs from the other confederations.
It is understood that Fifa president Gianni Infantino has personally led negotiations with Apple.
It is thought that Fifa had originally planned to secure commercial revenues of $1.5bn (€1.4bn) to $2bn from the 2025 tournament, with media rights expected to account for about half of that. Further details of Fifa’s initial commercial vision for the tournament are available in this SportBusiness Media feature.
However, sources have told SportBusiness that Fifa is now targeting well over $2bn in commercial revenues from the 2025 edition.
At the time of the announcement of the competition, some European clubs and leagues expressed concerns over additional workload on their players. However, it is thought that the exposure brought from playing in the high-profile tournament, along with a healthy prize pool, would alleviate these concerns.
For Apple, the deal, if completed, would see its second major involvement in football after its 10-year, $2.5bn global rights deal for Major League Soccer, from 2023 to 2032.
An expansion of the Club World Cup was first mooted in 2016, and, in 2019, China was announced as the first host of an expanded 24-team competition. Infantino wrote to Fifa Council members in May 2018 stating that his plans at the time were backed by a “solid and serious” group of investors, believed to be led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.
However, the 2021 competition was postponed after Japan withdrew as host because of Covid-19 concerns. The event was eventually played in the United Arab Emirates in February 2022. The most recent Club World Cup was held in December 2023 in Saudi Arabia.
The Fifa Council took the decision to play the 2025 edition in the US in order to “maximise synergies” with the organisation of the 2026 Fifa World Cup, which is taking place in the US, Canada and Mexico.
Reached for comment, a Fifa representative said: “As a general practice, Fifa does not confirm or deny commercial discussions.”
Further details on the proposed Apple deal will be published in a SportBusiness Media feature in the coming days.