Did the Club World Cup matter? Empty seats and hot days offer warnings on FIFA's challenges ahead of 2026

"No tournament will be perfect."

There were tones of practicality in Jurgen Klinsmann's comment as he and his fellow members of the FIFA technical study group reviewed the Club World Cup during a media briefing in New York City on Thursday. The refrain, though, could not be truer about this tournament, and not only because hiccups are to be expected for the first-of-its-kind 32-team Club World Cup, which concluded with Sunday's final between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain at MetLife Stadium, with the Blues winning 3-0.

It is hard to draw a concise conclusion about the Club World Cup in its new format, since traditional markers of success and complaints went hand-in-hand over the last four weeks. It was a unique showcase for the tangibles and intangibles that create experience, as well as which of FIFA's bets did and did not pay off, an exercise in responding to the unfamiliar. Obstacles are stitched into the fabric of sporting events, but this one forces questions about how much of it was natural adversity or manufactured problems.

Even with much of the tournament done and dusted, some of the uncertainty still lingers, inspiring an existential question about Gianni Infantino's first major project in his nearly 10 years as FIFA president – and about the organization's abilities to deliver on the vision.

Some proof of on-field concept

FIFA billed the expanded Club World Cup as a competition that filled a need in terms of sporting merit, though there were questions about whether everything would tilt predictably in Europe's favor. The final did nothing to assuage those concerns, especially since reigning UEFA Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain were the favorites, but the Club World Cup's greatest success is that there were plenty of compelling moments on the field and a healthy batch of surprises.

South American sides were undefeated in six of the 12 matches they played against European teams, showcasing that the gap between the two continents' clubs may not be as vast as some may have expected. It was the Brazilian teams who truly stole the show – all four progressed out of their group, sending European sides like Atletico Madrid and FC Porto packing. Fluminense were the true standout with a run to the semifinals, a $60 million-plus windfall that equates to more than 80% of their revenue last year serving as a hefty consolation prize. Each of the six South American teams, though, came to the U.S. with a point to prove, many managing to do just that.

"[Brazilian teams have] done a great campaign in the Club World Cup," Fluminense manager Renato Gaucho said on Monday before their semifinal against Chelsea. "When I said we were an ugly duckling, with all due respect to all other clubs, I mean an ugly duckling in financial terms, because that's a reality. Fluminense's finances don't make 10% of the finances of these other clubs. They are in a position to hire all these major players, and obviously, when you have all these major players in a single team, your chances of winning are much higher."

Manchester City's round of 16 exit to Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal, meanwhile, serves as the biggest surprise of the Club World Cup, the whole collection of matches showcasing a competitiveness that makes for an entertaining show – more so than the bells and whistles of the American sports-inspired pre-match walkouts, never adding extra hype to any of the matches. There was a seriousness that even caught Arsene Wenger, FIFA's chief of global football development, by surprise.

"I visited many clubs and … it was not bad at all," Wenger said on Thursday. "I was highly surprised. Everybody inside the camp was very, very highly motivated. I spoke with some teams who, when they were out, were very disappointed."

The $1 billion prize pot seemed to offer enough incentive to any team who may have lacked it, especially the Europeans who, sometimes incorrectly, insisted they were more fatigued than everyone else. Some may have also been resigned to the reality that opting out of competing was not something they felt was available to them, making the best of an imperfect situation.

"In my point of view, this is like you play in a World Cup with the national team so for me, we can discuss that the players have a lot of games to play but I think these players or my players, they enjoy to be here," Dortmund's Niko Kovac said during the group stage. "We don't want to talk about maybe too much minutes, too much games. This is a negative for our mindset and this is not necessary. If you come and you think in that way, I think you can't be successful so I think you must take it serious and positive and that's what I saw and that's what I see. My players, they are thinking very positive and we prepared everything to be top, fit for this tournament."

While Europeans exuded a sense of tolerance at the Club World Cup, everyone else found a way to make up the gap. Much like the South American teams on the pitch, their fans made up the difference even in half-empty stadiums, and the same was true for a group of African teams that traveled in big numbers. The Club World Cup's lone saving grace is that it offered a reminder that a Euro-centric view of the world's most popular sport is a limiting one, both on and off the pitch, but it did not make up for the tournament's shortcomings.

Hot days, empty seats

While FIFA's wager on competitive value paid off, they did not exactly cash in on their bet on the U.S. as an ideal host venue for the first expanded Club World Cup. The overall returns were mixed, painting a picture of the American soccer scene that may have surprised outsiders but did not shock locals.

The cavernous NFL venues FIFA picked to host most of the Club World Cup matches were not even half full at times during the group stage including at MetLife Stadium, which was at 44.9% capacity through five first round matches. New Jersey governor Phil Murphy argued that the teams in question, "not all household names," were the reason why the attendance was low. A few Club World Cup participants always drew a crowd – Real Madrid, who have spent decades building their brand globally, and Boca Juniors, whose populous U.S. fanbase bring as much passion as the locals in Argentina, were among them. The competition was mostly made up of teams that could draw a modest crowd, though, lending credence to the argument that soccer-specific stadiums may have been a better choice. The atmosphere would have certainly benefited from it, while FIFA may have been spared the embarrassment of seeing headline after headline about ticket prices being slashed to draw sizable audiences.

The attendance figures also offer a reminder that the Club World Cup and next year's World Cup are not exactly analogous – Murphy believes the newness of the former was a hindrance for fans, while the latter's status as the world's most popular sporting event will resonate with Americans.

"We already proved it in 1994 with only 24 teams in the tournament," Murphy said. "We set the all-time attendance record, which still stands, and there have been 32 teams since then. Next year will be 48 teams … The World Cup is in a category of one relative to any other sporting event, never mind soccer, and we're going to prove that again next year."

Players and fans were also subject to the USA's summertime climate extremes, experiencing heat waves and weather delays at a cadence that was unfamiliar to many. Some players, like Real Madrid's Aurelien Tchouameni, said players "get used to it, little by little," but others like Chelsea's Enzo Fernandez, said he became dizzy during Tuesday's semifinal and described the heat as "dangerous." The brutal conditions are likely to be this Club World Cup's most lasting legacy, and not a particularly kind one.

The weather impacted play in a variety of ways. The usually attack-minded Palmeiras were more defensive as they beat Al Ahly 2-0 in the group stage during a match that kicked off at 12 p.m., the heat impacting their ability to connect passes and dynamism further up the pitch. Wenger said the technical study group found that "heat of over 35 degrees [Celsius, 95 degrees Fahrenheit] had an impact on high-speed running, so sprints, not distance," while weather delays added another element. While Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca called a two-hour delay during their round of 16 win over Benfica "a joke," it also inspired new tactical ideas from others – Al Ahly's Jose Riviero, for example, went with a quadruple substitution that he hoped would add some fresh legs to the game against Palmeiras, though the Brazilian side were able to hunker down after taking a 2-0 lead.

The climate may be out of FIFA's control, but player welfare is not, and the conditions at the Club World Cup offer a stark reminder that new innovations may be needed from world soccer's governing body. Wenger noted that the roofs in a handful of World Cup venues next year will help and that the U.S. is not alone in experiencing these temperatures – the Women's Euro kicked off last week in Switzerland with temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, while Wimbledon experienced its hottest day on record a few days earlier. Less encouraging, though, is the fact that Wenger seems to be kicking the can down the road on an issue that is affecting players and fans today.

"It looks like as well at the same time in Europe, we have the same weather conditions," he said. "It will be a future problem for everybody."

A flawed dry run for 2026

The last preparations for Sunday's match gave the impression that some players have braved the elements en route to the final, decreasing the luster of a weeks-long run of form that should, in theory, add some prestige to the teams' and players' reputations.

"I think the biggest challenge is the circumstances we're playing in – the travel, the quality of the pitches," Chelsea captain Reece James said on Friday. "The climate is so hot. No one in Europe is used to this heat, playing at 3 o'clock, the hottest time of the day, is super difficult for us to adapt."

While the hot and humid days have been a constant, potentially offering a preview to the many Club World Cup players who will likely take part in next year's World Cup, the inconsistencies of the pitches have been another hardship players have experienced. The few soccer-specific stadiums used for the Club World Cup have received compliments, but they will not be back next year; FIFA will host World Cup matches in 11 NFL stadiums in 2026, making it a perfect test for their grass growth and installation process. The results were mixed – complaints ranged from "dry" to "slow," while PSG manager Luis Enrique said the "ball bounced like a rabbit" at Seattle's Lumen Field.

Many of the Club World Cup venues, including MetLife Stadium, used a Tahoma 31 bermudagrass that was grown specifically for the tournament, a process that will be repeated for next year's World Cup. At MetLife, which hosted Sunday's final as well as the 2026 World Cup final, the freshly grown grass is layers above the turf that NFL teams are used to playing on. While that is at the bottom, the layers above include "an aluminum floor, then there's permavoid, which is the drainage cell, then there's a geotextile layer, then there's the stabilized Bermuda T31 turf," per venue pitch manager Blair Christiansen.

Christiansen admitted before the tournament began that player feedback would be taken into consideration as they begin the process to grow next year's World Cup pitches, which will be a year-long project for each venue. The attempt to ensure the surfaces would feel as similar as possible from stadium to stadium, though, seems not to have panned out at all, putting pressure on those responsible for next year's pitches to get things right.

Those were not the only logistics that organizers had a chance to work out during the Club World Cup. Though the 2026 World Cup host committees were not involved in staging this year's tournament, the six hosts cities that will double dip took the opportunity this summer to ensure their house was in order; in New Jersey specifically, they ran more buses and trains despite limited demand and they set up a command center so local and federal authorities could collaborate on safety and security.

The Club World Cup also offered FIFA president Infantino yet another manufactured way to cozy up to U.S. president Donald Trump, mostly through photo ops but also some official business. FIFA will be setting up a secondary U.S. office at Trump Tower, a small ceremony on Monday offering Infantino the latest opportunity to embed himself inside the Trump family's orbit, a move that has not gone over well with other high-ranking soccer officials in the past. Monday's event was merely a chance for the main parties involved to use whatever soft power they have in the way they see fit – Infantino always insists that his networking is in the sport's best interest, while Eric Trump used his time in front of a microphone to prop up the family name, repeating talking points he and his relatives have used thousands of times before, no matter how irrelevant to the Club World Cup they were.

The final itself was a perfect encapsulation of an imperfect tournament, the on-field result offering an entertaining surprise on a day that was overwhelmed by spectacle. A pre-match performance from Robbie Williams and Laura Pausini of FIFA's new official anthem, "Desire." was appropriately bland, the pair overshadowed by the inflatable recreation of the Club World Cup trophy. The first-of-its-kind halftime show starring Doja Cat, J Balvin, Tems and a surprise appearance from Coldplay, was dystopian – instead of ruining the already unpleasant pitch at halftime, they instead performed in a stage built into the top tier of MetLife Stadium. The strange scenes, though, were not complete without Donald Trump's participation, the president greeted with several rounds of boos on Sunday before inserting himself into Chelsea's trophy lift that stunned the players and onlookers alike in one of the most bizarre sights a professional sporting event has ever provided.

Chelsea's upset win over PSG was the type of storyline that should be commanding in its own right but it was overshadowed by chaos that could be more memorable than the actual result. The on-field displays, as entertaining as they were, felt secondary by the time the confetti fell at MetLife Stadium – and likely even before. The tournament's main talking points had become about logistics as the final approached, with Infantino declaring this to be "the world's most successful club competition" and Wenger alleging that 100% of participants would say "they would want to do it again," FIFA's executives spending plenty of time making claims that are hard to prove. With the tournament over, it is clear that the skepticism that followed the Club World Cup in its buildup never really dissipated. A feeling of prestige never really replaced it, even if Chelsea and PSG were as motivated as they could be for Sunday, the tried-and-true routines of professional sports kicking in. The prize money matters to the clubs that collected it and the semblance of a trial run for a chunk of the World Cup host cities were beneficial to those that needed it, but that does not make for a successful tournament. Four weeks and more than 60 games later, it is hard to know if the Club World Cup really mattered to anyone from a competitive standpoint, the truest marker of sporting success, only time will tell if it ever truly will.