Why are Liverpool and Barcelona not allowed to participate in the FIFA Club World Cup?

(Dan Tri) - Although the FIFA Club World Cup is considered a tournament of the strongest football teams in the world, Liverpool and Barcelona are still not allowed to participate.

For the first time in history, FIFA increased the number of teams participating in the Club World Cup to 32 and organized it on the same scale as the World Cup for national teams. FIFA divided the slots for each continent, of which Europe (where there are many strong clubs) has 12 slots.

Liverpool and Barcelona fail to qualify for the FIFA Club World Cup (Photo: Marca).

The regulations for dividing the participation slots for European representatives are as follows:

Four places belong to the Champions League winners between the 2020/21 and 2023/24 seasons. They are Chelsea (2021), Real Madrid (2022 and 2024) and Man City (2023).

The remaining eight places are reserved for the teams with the best results in the Champions League during the same period (excluding the champions).

However, each country can only have a maximum of two teams participating, unless more than two clubs win the Champions League between 2021 and 2024.

Based on these, Liverpool cannot have a place in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup despite reaching the final in 2022. The reason is that England already has 2 places belonging to Chelsea and Man City, the Champions League champions during this time.

Barcelona also missed out on a spot due to their poor performance in the Champions League compared to Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. The Catalans have 61 points, six less than Atletico Madrid. The reason Los Blaugrana don't have many points is because they were eliminated from the group stage in the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons.

Groups at the FIFA Club World Cup (Photo: FIFA).

Therefore, Barcelona, despite having higher scores than Benfica (57 points), Juventus (52 points) or Salzburg (40 points), still does not qualify to participate because Spain only has a maximum of 2 places.

The FIFA Club World Cup will take place from June 15 to July 14 (Vietnam time) in the US. The opening match between host Inter Miami and Al Ahly will take place at 7am on June 15 at Hard Rock Stadium (Miami). The final match of the tournament will take place on July 14 at MetLife Stadium (New Jersey).

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/vi-sao-liverpool-barcelona-khong-duoc-du-fifa-club-world-cup-20250613185020917.htm