The 2025 edition of the Club World Cup is very much a trip into the unknown. That’s not only because this is the first edition of this new-look summer tournament as compared to the very small winter one, but there’s also been a whole lot of uncertainty about just how all of it is going to go down.
Not the way it’s formatted, but just the actual manner of which things will take place over the summer — be it financially, where it will be broadcast and the state of many of the 32 teams in the field.
We’ve slowly heard about venues in the United States. And, just a couple of days after the pots for the draw were released, we heard who [Juventus](https://www.blackwhitereadallover.com) will play in the Club World Cup group stage.
During Thursday’s draw hosted by a certain well-dressed Italian man named Alessandro Del Piero in Miami — where Leo Messi and Inter Miami will host the tournament’s opening game come June 15 — Juve’s group stage opponents were revealed. Sitting in Pot 2 and subsequently drawn into Group G, Juventus were drawn against English champions Manchester City, CAF Champions League winners from 2021-22 Wydad AC out of Morocco and Dubai side Al Ain FC, providing the first major talking point for what this summer tournament will actually look like other than where games are being played.
Juventus’ opening Club World Cup fixture will be against Al Ain, with the final group stage matchup coming against Pep Guardiola’s Man City.
(Yes, the same Manchester City that Juve will face in the Champions League next week. You can be the judge as to which one will have bigger importance to Thiago Motta and Co.)
There have been reports from last spring that suggest Juventus could earn as much as €50 million for their participation in the tournament, with more prize money still to be determined depending on how far they advance through the competition.
Twenty-four hours before the draw took place, [The New York Times reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/business/fifa-dazn-club-world-cup.html) that FIFA secured a $1 billion broadcasting deal for the tournament with streaming platform DAZN. According to the NYT, Club World Cup games will be available for free on the platform and” the rights might be sublicensed to broadcasters around the world.”
The tournament’s broadcasting deal had been a major sticking point leading up to the draw, with Apple reportedly balking at FIFA’s demands and deeming them to be too high for a competition that had never been played before.