World Club Championship News

The idea to hold a championship to decide the world’s best team was dreamt up in the late 1950s. During those post-WWII years when sport was helping the world come together and soothe painful memories of conflict, football in Europe and South America continued its global dominance.

The FIFA Club World Championship is a football competition contested between the leading clubs from all 6 continental confederations. The first competition took place in Brazil in January 2000. It was intended by FIFA to be a replacement for the Intercontinental Cup (also known as the Toyota Cup), which is contested annually in Tokyo, Japan by the champions of Europe and South America.

The new tournament was not universally popular, but nevertheless a second edition was pencilled in for Spain in 2001, to feature 12 teams. This was cancelled owing to a combination of factors, most importantly the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner ISL. It was then intended to hold the event in 2003, but this also failed to happen. FIFA eventually agreed terms with the Toyota Cup to merge the two competitions, with the first installment of the relaunched Club World Championship held in Japan between December 11 and December 18, 2005 with Brazilian team São Paulo winning the competition in a narrow one nil victory over UEFA Champions Liverpool.

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