What does the FIFA Club World Cup lose without Ronaldo?

Cristiano Ronaldo will not be playing at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup as Al-Nassr are ineligible.

The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup is expected to be one of the historic turning points in world football at the club level. With a new format bringing together 32 top teams from all continents, the tournament in the US this summer has the ambition to go beyond the shadow of the UEFA Champions League to become a "real World Cup" for clubs.

Yet amid the big names and glittering stage, one void remains as stark as ever – Ronaldo will not be there. And that absence is more than just a technical detail. It is an absence of emotion, symbolism, and global appeal that no other player can replace.

Why can't Ronaldo attend?

Even if Al-Nassr - Ronaldo's current club - wins the 2023/24 AFC Champions League, they will still not qualify for the 2025 Club World Cup. The reason lies in FIFA's special selection format: instead of relying on results in a single season, clubs are selected based on their achievements and continental ranking points accumulated over the past four years. In this time frame, Al-Nassr do not have enough points to qualify for the Asian representative group.

That means Ronaldo – a four-time Club World Cup winner, holder of hundreds of records and the all-time leading goalscorer in international football – will have to watch the tournament from home. Not only will his fans be left disappointed, but FIFA and the tournament will lose one of their media and commercial “flags”.

Without Ronaldo, the 2025 Club World Cup will certainly be affected in many ways.

Ronaldo is no longer just a football star. He is a global brand, a living ambassador of elite football for nearly two decades. Every time Ronaldo appears, viewership skyrockets, social media platforms explode, and the match simply becomes a global event.

Without Ronaldo, the 2025 Club World Cup will certainly be affected in many ways. Interest will be reduced: especially in developing markets such as Asia, the Middle East and Latin America - where Ronaldo has a huge fan base.

Commercial value has been reduced: tickets, TV rights, shirts and online engagement have all failed to reach their peak. Iconic story lost: a potential clash between Ronaldo and Messi at the Club World Cup – possibly the last time the two legends would have faced each other – has not happened.

Ronaldo dominated the Club World Cup during his peak years: winning once with Manchester United (2008), three times with Real Madrid (2014, 2016, 2017), scoring a total of 7 goals and appearing in the list of the greatest scorers in the history of the tournament.

But the 2025 Club World Cup is different. It is an expanded version, with a larger scale, high competition and global attention. It could have been the ideal stage for Ronaldo - in his twilight years - to close his career with a brilliant chapter, in the context of world football entering a period of generational transition.

Unfortunately, that opportunity did not materialize.

The gap between ambition and reality

FIFA has high hopes for the new Club World Cup - a tournament that could become a "global Champions League". But the absence of an icon like Ronaldo exposes a paradox: although the format is technically reasonable, it ignores the emotional, symbolic and marketing elements - values that UEFA has done well for many years.

The absence of the Portuguese legend leaves the tournament without an icon, an emotional anchor that no one can replace.

If FIFA really wants the tournament to be successful, in addition to strong teams and fair mechanisms, they need to create conditions for "living legends" to participate - people who bring stories, cultural depth and connect hundreds of millions of hearts around the world.

The 2025 Club World Cup will still take place. Lionel Messi is likely to be there. The European and South American champions will bring class and quality. But without Ronaldo, the tournament loses part of its soul - the part that makes fans eager to turn on the TV not just to watch a match, but to relive the emotions of an era.

And that is what makes the tournament - no matter how expanded - still not complete.

Source: https://znews.vn/fifa-club-world-cup-mat-gi-khi-thieu-ronaldo-post1560151.html