Real Madrid move casts further doubt on FIFA Club World Cup next summer

FIFA has made progress on its plans to expand the Club World Cup to 32 teams and hold it in the US next summer, with 12 teams from Europe including Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. Amid widespread doubts about the tournament, Real Madrid's latest move has cast further doubt on the competition.

It was marketed to the top European clubs as a tournament for which qualifying alone would be worth around €50 million in TV money, and the tournament was worth €2 billion in total. However, according to Relevo, Real Madrid have not budgeted any income from next year's tournament as part of their annual accounts.

The reason for this is that they feel like they don't have enough information to give accurate numbers about the tournament. Despite FIFA's big claims about the tournament, details remain scant. The locations have been confirmed, but the football governing body has only announced one main sponsor, Chinese technology company Hisense, and has yet to sell TV rights to the competition.

There have been widespread calls to shorten the calendar at football's highest level, and yet FIFA is going against this, and with little more than forecasts behind the figures FIFA talks about, it's no surprise that big clubs aren't already on the money calculate. In theory it is a profitable model, but the top parties will want guarantees.