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The Club World Cup, an almost personal bet of the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, and the US president, Donald Trump, has served to test the capacity of the United States to organize the 2026 World Cup and has relieved the pending challenges of this country to also raise football to the “king sport” range.
Infantino, responsible for the expansion of the tournament to 32 teams and its celebration every four years, sees in this championship, which is in its final stretch, a key trial to strengthen the position of FIFA in the North American market, where the NFL, the NBA and the MLB continue to seem unattainable in terms of audiences, sponsorship and popular culture.
For his part, Trump has not missed the opportunity to link his name to a global event.
The Republican leader has already confirmed his assistance to the grand final of Sunday between Chelsea and the PSG in the Metlife Stadium of New Jersey and, according to the local press, FIFA will open a temporary office in the Trump Tower in New York to promote the 2026 World Cup.
On Wednesday's semifinal left Real Madrid, current European champion and great favorite. The white team fell with a crash against Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) 4-0 in an unanswered match, marked by the double of the Spanish midfielder Fabián Ruiz and the goals of the Frenchman Ousmane Dembélé and the Portuguese Gonçalo Ramos.
Chelsea, on the other hand, beat the Brazilian Fluminense 2-0 with a double of João Pedro and thus completed the unpublished Anglo-French final that will be played before about 82,000 spectators, complete capacity of the Metlife Stadium.
The Club World Cup, which until 2023 was played with seven teams and went almost unnoticed by the general public, now distributes more than 1,000 million dollars in awards and organization expenses and the team that is crowned champion could be pocketed up to 125 million.
Regarding influx, FIFA and the Organizing Committee celebrate almost 95 % of the entries of this expanded edition, with matches in New York, Miami, Houston and Los Angeles.
More than 1.3 million fans will have passed through the stadiums at the close of the final, with an economic impact of more than 600 million dollars only in tourism, security and logistics, according to FIFA estimates itself.
The 2026 World Cup, which will organize the US, Mexico and Canada, is emerging as the great commitment of FIFA to definitively cement the expansion of football in North America.
However, doubts persist about the structure of the calendar, the saturation of matches and the disposition of the great European clubs to free their figures for a summer tournament that some soccer unions, such as FIFPRO, consider excessive.
FIFA has announced that the half -time show of the final will be carried out by stars such as Doja Cat, Tems and J Balvin.
The intermediate is expected to gather audience figures close to 100 million spectators worldwide, reinforcing the idea that football not only competes in the field, but also in the entertainment industry.
For many analysts, the great unknown after the final whistle will be if the enthusiasm of these days translates into a real and sustained follow -up of club football in the USA ..
Sunday's final, with two European giants by measuring a millionaire stock market, will serve as a inflation thermometer and Trump's interest to capitalize on football as a political platform.
The ball will roll once again to demonstrate if the “American bet”, this “logistics and media test” of FIFA, according to Infantino's words, is up to its promises and its accounts. Chelsea and PSG will decide who is crowned as the first champion of this new era, while the United States is tested as host of the most popular sport in the world.
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