FIFA has been sued by FIFPRO’S European member unions as they aim to block the revamped Club World Cup in 2025.
The world football governing body is facing a legal challenge over its “unilateral” decision to set the international match calendar – particularly an expanded 32-team FIFA Club World Cup – unions representing soccer players said in a statement on Thursday.
The claim filed by the English Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) and the Union Nationale des Footballeurs Professionnels – the French player union – and supported by FIFPRO Europe, accuses FIFA of violating player’s rights and potentially EU competition law by creating a calendar that is “overloaded and unworkable.”
According to FIFPRO Europe, FIFA has “failed to meaningfully engage or negotiate and have unilaterally continued a programme of competition expansion despite the opposition of player unions.”
The dispute stems from FIFA’s decision to host the expanded Club World Cup in the United States from June 15 to July 13, 2025. This decision, announced in May, was met with an immediate backlash from both FIFPRO and the World Leagues Association (WLA), who threatened legal action if FIFA did not reconsider rescheduling the tournament. Despite these warnings, FIFA has remained firm on its stance which has forced the body to pursue legal action.
FIFPRO’s central argument is that the new tournament schedule imposes excessive demands on players, leaving them with little to no rest between seasons. According to Maheta Molango, PFA’s chief executive, “The fixture calendar is broken to the point that it has now become unworkable.”
Whereas, David Terrier, President of FIFPRO Europe, said: “Since all attempts at dialogue have failed, it is now up to us to ensure that the fundamental rights of players are fully respected by taking the matter to the European courts and thus to the ECJ.
It’s not a question of stigmatising a particular competition, but of denouncing both the underlying problem and the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
