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Auckland City's amateurs take unpaid leave for CWC adventure
Gulf Today
|June 11, 2025
The revamped Club World Cup starting on Saturday brings together some of the most celebrated teams and players in global football. And Auckland City.
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In a tournament boasting $1 billion in prize money and featuring superstar multi-millionaire players including Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, the New Zealand side are a striking anomaly.
Auckland City are an amateur club, their players balancing football with university studies or full-time jobs as teachers, real estate agents and sales reps. They don't earn a salary for playing.
Their first game at the Club World Cup in the United States brings them face-to-face with German champions Bayern Munich and their prolific England striker Harry Kane.
This story is from the June 11, 2025 edition of Gulf Today.
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