Mirror: The low attendance rate hit the FIFA boss in the face, and the live viewership ratings are even worse than those of the European Youth Championship

June 17th News The 2025 Club World Cup is in progress, and the Mirror talked about the current embarrassing situation of this competition.

The Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta can accommodate 71,000 people and cost £1 billion to build, but Chelsea's match against Los Angeles FC was almost played in a mid-air stadium, and the FIFA bosses "have been left red-faced", just like a large number of empty red seats in the stands.

Although the regular ticket price is only 38 pounds (about 51 US dollars), the estimated number of spectators before the game is about 26,000, the actual number of attendees under the official statistics is even lower, with only 22,127 people.

FIFA has previously lowered the ticket prices for the Club World Cup, but ticket sales are still not ideal, and the number of attendees on the weekend is better than expected. Miami International participated in the opening game of this event, and with Messi's star effect, 60,927 viewers watched their match against Cairo Nationals.

More than 80,000 spectators watched Paris' 4-0 victory over Atletico Madrid at the Rose Bowl, but Chelsea's match against Los Angeles FC failed to attract so many spectators, although the match was held on Monday at 3pm on weekdays. FIFA launched the new event, which was attended by 32 teams, but its schedule was clearly problematic, and the number of empty seats at the beginning was a blow to FIFA.

Although Bayern's 10-goal victory over Auckland City attracted a lot of TV viewers, for example, the peak live broadcast ratings of Channel 5 reached 560,000, and the average ratings were 392,000. But for comparison, the average live viewership of the English U21 team match was 562,000, and the peak viewership on Channel 4 was as high as 840,000.

DAZN and FIFA have reached a broadcast agreement for this Club World Cup, and Channel 5 is broadcasting the game in the United States. Whether it will be popular with viewers in the United States remains to be seen. In addition, the champion of this event will win a prize of £97 million, and the total prize pool of the event will reach £775 million.