Where are the Club World Cup teams from? Nationality of clubs and how they qualified for 2025 FIFA tournament

Thirty-two teams from around the world will convene to participate in the revamped 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.

Founded in 2000, the Club World Cup has undergone a total facelift for its 21st edition, as FIFA decided to reformat the club competition to more closely mirror its eponymous sister tournament on the international level.

For the 2025 edition and the foreseeable future, the Club World Cup will now feature 32 teams instead of just seven, and will be held every four years instead of annually. Thus, continental champions from across the globe are set to begin a month-long competition in the United States crammed into the summer.

FIFA instituted a rule in place that prevented too many clubs from one nation being nominated for participation, so the resulting field features teams from all over the globe.

The Sporting News details where every single club is from, and 

MORE: Full squad lists for all 32 teams in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup

All 32 clubs at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup

How each club qualified for the 2025 Club World Cup

Qualification for the 2025 Club World Cup was left to each confederation to decide how to divvy up their slots. Generally, confederations nominated their continental champions from the past four years to participate, but there were a few exceptions.

One rule played a big role in qualification to the Club World Cup across multiple confederations — no single country could feature more than two clubs qualify to the tournament, except by winning their continental championship outright. 

AFC

The Asian confederation would generally have selected its four most recent winners of their continental championship tournament, the AFC Champions League, to participate in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.

However, because the AFC Champions League switched from a calendar year schedule to a European league-based schedule for the 2024/25 competition, there was a slight gap in the schedule that messed with the system.

Therefore, the past three continental champions (Al Hilal, Urawa Red Diamonds, and Al Ain) were nominated, plus one additional side from the highest ranking club in the confederation’s points system not already qualified (Ulsan HD).

CAF

The African confederation was forced to go outside conventional nomination practices thanks to Egyptian club Al Ahly winning three of the last four CAF Champions League titles.

Therefore, after Al Ahly and Wydad Casablanca entered as continental champions from the past four years, the remaining two spots were back-filled by the highest-ranking clubs in the confederation’s point system (Esperance de Tunis, Mamelodi Sundowns).

CONCACAF

Originally, the North American confederation simply nominated its previous four continental champions to participate at the Club World Cup, as Monterrey, Seattle Sounders, Club Leon, and Pachuca were bound for the competition.

However, Club Leon was barred from competing due to violation of multi-club ownership rules, which resulted in a playoff being organized between LAFC, the 2023 CONCACAF Champions League runners-up to Club Leon, and Club America, the highest-ranked CONCACAF team not yet qualified. LAFC won the playoff game 2-1.

Additionally, the fifth team from CONCACAF is Inter Miami, with Lionel Messi’s side nominated to participate as a guest. Prior to the new expanded format, it was tradition for the host nation of the competition to nominate a domestic participant to the event, with MLS determining that Inter Miami would be best as the 2024 MLS Supporters’ Shield winners. In reality, they likely just wanted Messi to be involved.

CONMEBOL

The South American confederation had the easiest time filling its six Club World Cup slots.

The most recent four Copa Libertadores winners were all nominated, as four Brazilian clubs (Palmeiras, Flamengo, Fluminense, and Botafogo) qualified. Argentine rivals Boca Juniors and River Plate were the next highest-ranked clubs in the CONMEBOL table not from Brazil, who already had exceeded the two-team limit.

OFC

Because the Oceanic confederation only gets one slot, it could not simply nominate the annual continental champions.

Instead, the OFC took their highest-ranked overall club based on the confederation’s ranking system, Auckland City, who also conveniently won all of the past four OFC Champions League titles.

UEFA

As the most prominent confederation at the club level of global football, UEFA was handed 12 slots at the competition.

These were divvied out in regular fashion. The four most recent UEFA Champions League winners would get a spot, plus the eight highest-ranking eligible clubs in UEFA’s coefficient system not to have already been nominated.

The only quirk happened thanks to Real Madrid winning two of the four Champions League titles during the qualification period, which opened up a spot for the ninth highest-ranked European team, Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg. This happened largely thanks to the two-club-per-country rule, which eliminated the likes of Liverpool (Chelsea and Man City from England), Barcelona (Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid from Spain), and AC Milan (Inter and Juventus from Italy) from contention, amongst others.