'Bold but significant risk': Fifa pulls out all the stops for sales

Governing body battles slow take-up of tickets for expanded tournament and player burnout concerns

- Paul MacInnes

This week Donald Trump convened a prayer meeting in the Oval Office. Gathered around the Resolute desk, constructed from the timbers of a British naval vessel, a series of pastors laid their hands on the president's thinning hair and prayed for his success. The only other item on the desk? The enormous intricate bauble that will serve as the trophy for Fifa's Club World Cup.

That Trump should like the look of an object lacquered in 24-carat gold plating, and designed by the New York jeweller Tiffany & Co, is not perhaps a huge surprise. But its prominent position on the world's most consequential desktop will surely have been welcomed by Fifa's president, Gianni Infantino, who left the trophy with Trump this month on his visit to the White House, a week after Volodymyr Zelenskyy's.

Infantino has a competition to sell after all. The Club World Cup is taking place in the US this summer and key issues are yet to be resolved. With fewer than 100 days to go, tickets are still available for each match in the tournament, with many fixtures showing large areas of seating unsold. A groundbreaking global broadcast deal between Fifa and the streaming platform Dazn, meanwhile, has yet to translate into sublicensing arrangements with national broadcasters.

There is also fury from other competition organisers - the Premier League included - over what is regarded as a landgrab and an imposition on a strained fixture calendar. At the same time, the Club World Cup stands a real chance of creating a paradigm shift in how club football is played.