World soccer’s governing body FIFA has announced that Spanish giants Real Madrid will play in the final of the relaunched Intercontinental Cup in Qatar in December.
The competition, for club teams from around the world, will have five matches, culminating in the final on December 18, for which the UEFA Champions League winners automatically qualify.
The tournament has a new format, with teams competing in a series of regional play-off matches for annual confederation-based titles and trophies.
Announced in December last year, the competition replaces the traditional Club World Cup - which will now be played every four years with 32 teams from 2025.
Qatar has previously hosted the annual Club World Cup in its old format twice – the 2019 and 2020 editions – as well as the FIFA World Cup in 2022.
Asian Champions League winners Al Ain beat Oceanic Champions League winners Auckland City 6-2 in the opening match on Sunday (September 22) in the African-Asian-Pacific Cup playoff. Al-Ain will now face African Champions League winners Al Ahly in Cairo on October 29.
The first two games will be played at the home of the higher-ranked team, allowing locals to watch their club play.
The action then switches to Doha, Qatar, where the 2024 South American Copa Libertadores winners will play Mexican side Pachuca, the winners of the Concacaf (North and Central America and the Caribbean) Champions Cup, on December 11 – a match dubbed by FIFA as the “Derby of the Americas”.
The winners of these two matches play each other in the Challenger Cup three days later to earn a spot in the Intercontinental Cup final against Real Madrid on December 18.
FIFA’s annual global club competition first launched as the Club World Championship in 2000. The first edition took place in Brazil and featured eight teams from six confederations.
The tournament ran in parallel with the Intercontinental Cup, which had been contested by the champions of Conmebol and UEFA since 1960.
After a pause between 2001 and 2004, when the competition was not active, it returned in 2005 as the FIFA Club World Cup.
It was announced last year by FIFA that the tournament will be known as the Intercontinental Cup moving forward, with winners from each of the six confederations given the chance to compete on the global stage on an annual basis.
England’s Manchester City are the current holders of the old Club World Cup having won the competition in 2023.
The first-ever edition of the new Club World Cup will be held in the US between June 15 and July 13 next year and include 32 teams divided into eight groups of four, with 63 matches to be played in total.
