The biennial World Cup could cost the league 8 billion euros each season, according to research

FIFA’s biennial proposals for a World Cup and changes to the Club World Cup could cost the league’s top home football league and UEFA around € 8 billion ($ 9 billion), according to lost TV rights and match days and trade deals, according to one. report ordered by the league.

More often international competitions, as well as additional games for international clubs, can lead to major changes in national leagues, including a reduction in the number of teams competing in them, a shift from weekends to weekday matches, and fewer home games, reports. he said.

The report, compiled by KPMG and FTI’s Delta Partners consultancy and viewed prior to publication. Reuters, in addition to reducing the club’s revenue, he announced that the move would spark interest in audience games.

It would also reduce the interest of advertisers in home football and cause tension in the players, which he said would lead to a worse game.

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Gianni Infantino, president of the governing body of the world of football, said last month that FIFA was discussing holding the World Cup every two years, instead of the current four-year cycle.

Arsene Wenger, former director of Arsenal and head of global development at FIFA, has proposed a new calendar, which will lead to a reduction in the number of international breaks, with one or two more breaks to compress the qualifying process.

He suggested holding the World Cup in alternate years with continental tournaments such as the European Championship and the America’s Cup. It also requires mandatory breaks so that players don’t get burned.

However, the idea has drawn a lot of opposition from UEFA, which is very popular and has won the Champions League, and national leagues such as the Italian Serie A, the Spanish League and the English Premier League, which have a huge following worldwide.

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has argued that more often than not a World Cup would dilute value and harm other competitions. He has threatened to boycott an additional European World Cup.

Wenger said in September: “So far club football is 80%, national team football is 20% and I want to keep that balance.”

FIFA has no answer Reuters request for comments, but has previously ordered a feasibility study.

VERY RISK

The report, which also involves the Major League Soccer, the Mexican, Japanese and South African Leagues and the big five in Europe, said that even the least harmful options could cost billions a year.

The biggest success would be TV revenue.

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The top 40 national leagues around the world and UEFA club competitions like the Champions League lose £ 5bn a season on audiovisual deals alone – more than a third of what the league currently gets on TV rights.

The study estimates that the league would lose more than a billion in visual rights a year due to a reduction in the number of games, a shortening of the 1.750 billion euros in the calendar, and another 901 million euros in changes to the calendar with weekend games. spend half a week.

The total revenue from the audiovisual rights generated by the league would fall from around € 14 billion to around € 9 billion, the study predicts.

François Godard, a senior analyst at Enders Analysis, said it would be very dangerous to hold a World Cup every two years.

“My concern is that demand will drop at some point. The risk of a sudden sudden drop is enormous if you weaken the main product (national leagues),” he told Reuters.

“If you switch to this new model every two years with a World Cup and you have to move games from weekend to mid-week and have a shorter overall season and some players may not be available at some point, you are weakening your core product.”

The report said trade losses would amount to 2,160 million per season, a drop of around 25%, and the negative impact of match-day revenue would cost clubs 1.2 billion euros, again a drop of around 25%.

He took several scenarios. But in all leagues it is predicted that from the 2024-25 season onwards, they will be reduced to 18 teams and forced to end their seasons in early May to adapt to FIFA’s plan. It was not clear how many games could be thrown.

The report will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the World League Forum next week, said Enrique Bonilla, President of the Forum and Liga MX.

“These plans are against leagues, clubs and players,” Bonilla said.

The 2018 World Cup earned $ 5.37 trillion for FIFA.

The gross revenue of the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League and the 2021 UEFA Super Cup is estimated at € 3.5 billion.