POTs confirmed for FIFA Club World Cup draw

BeSoccer 5 months ago 19.7k |

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All set for FIFA Club World Cup draw on Thursday — POTs are official. BeSoccer

FIFA has published the pots for the draw for the new 2025 Club World Cup, which will take place on Thursday. A total of 32 clubs will take part in eight groups of four each. Manchester City, Real Madrid, River Plate, Flamengo and Leo Messi's Inter Miami, who will be representing the host country, the United States, will all be in the draw.

The draw for the 2025 Club World Cup organised by FIFA will be held on Thursday, 5 December. The 32 participating teams will be drawn into the eight groups. The tournament will not be without controversy, as it occupies the last free slot in the quadrennial summer football cycle, which has generated great protests from the footballers' union.

The event will take place between 15th June and 13th July 2025 in the United States, where the Copa America has already been held this 2024 and where the 2026 World Cup is also being organised along with Mexico and Canada. In this FIFA Club World Cup, the best teams from each continent, such as Manchester City, Real Madrid, River Plate, Flamengo, Al-Hilal and Japan's Urawa Red Diamonds, will play against each other.

Leo Messi's Inter Miami will also be there, representing the host country, though not as MLS champions, but as champions of their regular league. The last team to qualify was Botafogo, who despite playing a man down from the first minute won the Copa Libertadores with a 3-1 win over Atletico Mineiro. As a result, they will be in one of the four pots for the draw on 5th December.

Pot 1 includes the four highest-ranked teams in the UEFA rankings, plus the other four South American leaders. Pot 2 contains the remaining eight teams from the European leagues. Pot 3 is made up of the top two teams from Asia, Africa and CONCACAF. Finally, Pot 4 contains the two remaining teams from these three confederations, plus the Oceania representative and Inter Miami.

These are the four pots in the draw for the Club World Cup:

Pot 1: Manchester City (England), Real Madrid (Spain), Bayern Munich (Germany), PSG (France), Flamengo (Brazil), Palmeiras (Brazil), River Plate (Argentina) and Fluminense (Brazil).

Pot 2: Chelsea (England), Borussia Dortmund (Germany), Inter Milan (Italy), Porto (Portugal), Atletico Madrid (Spain), Benfica (Portugal), Juventus (Italy) and Salzburg (Austria).

Pot 3: Al-Hilal (Saudi Arabia), Ulsan Hyundai (South Korea), Al Ahly (Egypt), Wydad Casablanca (Morocco), Rayados de Monterrey (Mexico), Club Leon (Mexico), Boca Juniors (Argentina) and Botafogo (Brazil).

Pot 4: Urawa Red Diamonds (Japan), Al-Ain FC (United Arab Emirates), Espérance Sportive de Tunisie (Tunisia), Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa), Pachuca (Mexico), Seattle Sounders (United States), Auckland City (New Zealand) and Inter Miami (United States).

To this information must be added the limitations that FIFA has included in the draw. As we said, there are 32 teams that will be paired into eight groups of four, of which two will qualify from each. The remaining 16 will then play knockout rounds from the 1/8 round on a single match basis until the final, which will be played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on 13th July 2025.