Hisense will be a VAR screen partner at next year’s 32-team FIFA Club World Cup. (FIFA imagery)

Global soccer’s governing body FIFA has today unveiled an inaugural commercial deal covering the new-look Club World Cup (CWC) competition with existing partner Hisense.

The Chinese consumer electronics brand – which has also been a FIFA partner for the last two editions of the men’s FIFA World Cup – becomes the first sponsor of the revamped CWC, which has now become a quadrennial competition, with the first edition taking place next June and July in the US. Specifically, Hisense will receive Video Assistant Referee (VAR) logo branding at next year's CWC.

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Up until this point, FIFA had no sponsors (or indeed broadcast partners) on board for the 32-team event, which is less than eight months away but which has proved extremely controversial with many of soccer’s stakeholders.

Clubs and players in particular are unhappy about the extra games and workload, with a formal complaint and legal action by the players union FIFPRO having been filed around this issue earlier in the year.

Hisense, meanwhile, is also a sponsor of European soccer’s governing body UEFA, with the latest deal between those two parties (through which Hisense is serving as UEFA’s official provider of VAR screens) unveiled in late May.

Hisense's FIFA tie-ups have revolved around the 2022 (Qatar) and 2018 (Russia) World Cups. GlobalData Sport valued the deal covering the 2022 event at $45 million.

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Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, said: “This partnership will offer fans unique ways to engage with the tournament, both on and off the pitch, while laying a technological and innovation-led foundation for the Club World Cup to flourish.”

FIFA has said that further commercial deals for the new competition, to take place across eight US venues, will be unveiled in the coming weeks.

In terms of other sponsorship agreements disclosed by FIFA over recent weeks and months, meanwhile, in mid-October multinational tech heavyweight Lenovo came in as a partner for the 2026 and 2030 men’s World Cups.

The 2025 FIFA CWC will entail a new format in which FIFA’s continental governing bodies will all – apart from the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) – receive multiple team slots.

Europe’s UEFA, with 12, will have the most teams involved. The line-up will include Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, PSG, Inter Milan, Porto, Benfica, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, and Red Bull Salzburg.