CHELSEA and Manchester City have been dangled a near £100million carrot for taking part in this summer’s controversial expanded Club World Cup.
City aces including Rodri and Kevin de Bruyne, as well as England skipper Harry Kane, have been among the global stars accusing football chiefs of piling even more games on a congested calendar, without thinking about player welfare.
Manchester City or Chelsea could claim almost £100million in prize money if they win this summer’s Club World Cup
Chelsea qualified as 2021 Champions League winners
And Man City are part of it after winning Europe’s elite competition in 2023
But Fifa President Gianni Infantino believes his latest pet project will become a huge event.
And Zurich officials have now outlined exactly how the £775m prize fund – with Fifa insisting every penny will go to clubs around the world – will be split.
Fifa say the winners will earn up to $125m – which is a fraction over £97m – under a heavily performance-related prize structure.
Clubs can earn a maximum £68m if they win all three group games and go all the way to lift the trophy in New York’s MetLife Stadium on July 13, with the final itself worth £31m to the winners and £23m to the runners up.
That adds up to a total £368m in performance-related cash, with the remaining £407m split between the 32 competing teams as entrance money.
However, to prevent the enormous sum warping the competitive balance in smaller countries, there will not be an even split – which would have seen each club earn around £13m.
Instead, the majority of the pool will go to the 12 European qualifiers, with Real Madrid understood to have taken the biggest individual fee of around £30m and Austrian outfit Salzburg taking £10m.
Chelsea and City, who qualified as Champions League winners between 2021 and 2024 and who are both also high in the Uefa coefficient table, are each understood to be taking slightly less than Madrid.
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But New Zealand’s Auckland City, representing Oceania, will be handed just £2.8m while the six South American qualifiers – four from Brazil and Boca Juniors and River Plate from Argentina – will get £11.8m each.
The tournament, which has been publicly backed by US President Donald Trump, will kick off on June 14 with Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami playing Egypt’s Al-Ahly in the Hard Rock Stadium home of the Miami Dolphins.
Chelsea’s opening opponents remain unclear after Mexican side Leon were bored out of the tournament by Fifa because they are part of the same Multi Club Ownership group as Pachuca.
Leon have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to be readmitted but Fifa will not confirm a replacement team for the match in Atlanta on June 16 until the resolution of the legal issues.
Chelsea’s other opponents for the group stage are Brazilians Flamengo and Tunisian side Esperance.
City will open against Morocco’s Wydad in Philadelphia on June 18 before matches against Al Ain of Abu Dhabi and Juventus.
If both Prem clubs win their groups they cannot meet in the competition before the final.
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