Yes, there’s scepticism, but hear me out … Thinking about the audience for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025

By Martyn Turze  |  Head of Consumer Research

With the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 starting this weekend, I’m going to be paying it close attention. Admittedly, not as close as I would be if Liverpool were taking part, but from a professional perspective at least, I’m intrigued.

I think it’s fair to say that within the UK at least – certainly from the podcasts I listen to, and conversations I’ve had with friends – that there’s been scepticism around whether the tournament will be watched (and enjoyed) by football fans.

We’ve probably all heard some of the criticisms thrown at it;

• The ‘dubious’ selection of teams taking part
• The vastly different quality and resources of the teams – if you google Auckland City, you’ll quickly see labels of them as ‘amateurs’ and ‘part-timers
• The amount of tickets not yet sold for some matches
• The broadcast deal with DAZN and sublicences being interpreted as a lack of belief in the competition from some major sports broadcasters

And yet …

I’m very aware that the traditional football season has ended (Liverpool won the Premier League by the way). Without this new competition, there wouldn’t be ‘top-level’ football to watch until the Women’s Euros start on 2nd July; that’s almost 3 weeks away!

Personally, having ignored the recent international break; the EFL Play-Offs and the UEFA Champions League final closing my interest in the season already feels like a long time ago.

For some fans, the summer break (shorter some years than others) is a blessed relief from the stress of following their team and managing their diary around it. However, for some, the summer break is a long, hard slog.

Will the tournament capture football fans in the way a FIFA World Cup or UEFA European Championship does?  Will people try to watch as many matches as possible? I doubt it.

But, will football fans find themselves sat on their sofa, remote in hand, wondering what to watch and looking to see if there’s a match on of interest?

The first real test of this question, is this coming Sunday, when channel 5 at 5pm will broadcast Bayern Munich (traditional European heavyweight) vs. Auckland City (the previously mentioned Kiwi part-timers). It’s the kind of David vs. Goliath contest which would be celebrated if it was an FA Cup 3rd round fixture.

If this globally imbalanced contest doesn’t capture the UK imagination, then Monday night sees the first match featuring a Premier League side, with Chelsea taking on Mexico’s Club León at 8pm, also on channel 5.

From the work done by my colleagues in Publicis Sport & Entertainment’s Media Research team, I know how important linear TV coverage (yes it is still fundamental to securing big audiences for sports events) and broadcast times are on consumption. With this in mind, if nothing else, I wouldn’t be surprised to see UK figures which might be on the underwhelming side, particularly for many of the matches.

I wonder what will be considered a ‘success’ by FIFA, and how that will be presented.

Based on our research, around 5 billion people (84% of the global audience) followed the Olympic Games last year. Similarly, FIFA also presented the figure of 5 billion for the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Are FIFA hoping for a similar figure? I expect so. Will they achieve it? I doubt it, or at least, I doubt I’ll believe it if they do.

In my role, there are times where I see big figures I struggle to believe. Figures which just don’t look right when you put them into context. For example, this week I’ve seen – according to a provider of aggregated survey data – that 61% of the UK will follow the FIFA Club World Cup. And yet, according to that same dataset, only 68% of the UK are football fans at all, with 52% interested in the Premier League and 42% interested in the Champions League. Do I believe that more people will watch the Club World Cup than are interested in the Premier League? No, I don’t. The how and why of that 61% could be an entirely different post, a much geekier research post.

I recognise, that major global events, like an Olympic Games or a FIFA World Cup can, and do, transcend typical sporting interest. There’ll always be people who don’t watch football at any other time of year, that engage with the World Cup, but I don’t think this tournament will do that. Not without the idea of supporting one’s country or coverage on BBC or ITV.

Personally, I know I’ll end up tuning into some matches; some out of curiosity and some out of genuine interest. There’ll also be plenty that will pass me by, or that I won’t be able to justify watching to my wife. As far as she’s concerned, there’s no football now until the Women’s Euros. Maybe, I’ll end up seeing clips and highlights on social and YouTube for some of those, maybe I won’t. Either way, I’ll have contributed to the size of the achieved audience.

I’ll be keeping an eye on the audiences; not just the amount of viewers, but also their motivations for doing so, and I’m curious about how many people engaging with the tournament will be gripped by it, or just tuning in for a bit.

I’ll finish with a generic, vague prediction, if it’s worth anything. UK football fans will follow the tournament to an extent, and probably watch at least some of a match or two – but it won’t achieve sustained, engaged viewing, and it certainly won’t be followed by 61% of the country.

What do you think?