Man City and Chelsea set to find out details of the expanded 2025 Club World Cup in America that could be spread across 29 days and finish just THREE weeks before the start of the next season

Manchester City and Chelsea’s players will be given notice of a gruelling 2024/25 season that could carry on until three weeks before the start of the next campaign when FIFA confirm the schedule for the expanded Club World Cup on Sunday.

FIFA’s plans for the new 32-team tournament have been shrouded in secrecy since president Gianni Infantino stunned clubs by announcing its launch without their agreement during last year’s Word Cup, but Mail Sport has learned that the inaugural competition in the United States has been scheduled to take place between 15 June and 13 July 2025.

City and Chelsea have already booked their place at the tournament along with Real Madrid by virtue of winning the Champions League during the 2021 to 2024 qualifying period, while the winners of this season’s competition will also qualify automatically. 

Eight other European clubs will qualify based on their performances in UEFA competitions over the same four-year period, along with six clubs from South America, four each from north/central America, Africa and Asia, as well as one from Oceania and a final guaranteed spot for the host country, the USA.

Infantino is expected to announce the schedule after it is rubberstamped at a meeting of the FIFA Council in Jeddah on Sunday. 

While all the venues have yet to be confirmed Mail Sport has learned that the majority of the stadiums will be on the USA’s East Coast in order to ensure more favourable kick-off times for European television audiences.

The Club World Cup itinerary will be particularly brutal for Premier League clubs, with the Community Shield taking place just three weeks after the final and the 2025/26 domestic season starting the following week. 

Most of City and Chelsea’s top European players therefore will face the daunting prospect of playing throughout three successive summers given their involvement in next summer’s European Championship and the 2026 World Cup.

FIFA insist that player welfare has been one of their main considerations in planning the tournament, with all teams guaranteed a minimum of three days’ rest between matches. 

The Club World Cup will follow the same format of recent World Cups, with eight groups of four leading to a first knockout round of 16, so the eventual finalists will end up playing seven games in four weeks.