Real Madrid and manager Carlo Ancelotti have clarified the Champions League winners will compete at next year’s Club World Cup despite the Italian earlier saying the club would “refuse the invitation”.
Ancelotti’s comment appeared in an interview with Italian newspaper Il Giornalewhich was released on Monday.
But the 65-year-old later posted on social media to say his words were “not interpreted in the way I intended”.
He added: “Nothing could be further from my interest than to reject the possibility of playing in a tournament that I consider could be a great opportunity to continue fighting for big titles with Real Madrid.”
Real is one of 12 European teams already qualified for the 32-team Fifa tournament to be held in the USA between 15 June and 13 July 2025.
In a statement, the La Liga champions said: “Real Madrid would like to announce that at no time has there been any question regarding our participation in the new Club World Cup to be organized by Fifa in the coming 2024/2025 season.
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“Our club will therefore take part, as planned, in this official competition and we are proud and excited to be involved in it and we will once again inspire our millions of fans all over the world with another trophy.”
In the interview with Il Giornale, Ancelotti was quoted as saying: “FIFA can forget it, footballers and clubs will not participate in that tournament.
“A single Real Madrid match is worth 20 million and Fifa wants to give us that amount for the whole cup. Negative. Like us, other clubs will refuse the invitation.”
The European Club Association (ECA) had distanced itself from Ancelotti’s interview remarks.
Last month. Fifa rejected claims that world players’ union Fifpro and the World Leagues Association (WLA), which includes the Premier League, were not consulted over plans.
Fifpro and the WLA called on Fifa to reschedule the tournament amid a threat of legal action.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has previously said the football calendar is “getting to a tipping point” with the amount of matches that teams are being asked to play.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino last month said he hoped Fifpro and the WLA would stop this “futile debate”.
“Even with the new Club World Cup of Fifa with 32 teams and 63 matches every four years, Fifa is organizing around 1% of the games of the top clubs in the world,” he said.
“All other matches, 98, 99%, are organized by the different leagues, associations, confederations, by all of you – and that’s good.
“But here comes the thing – the one or two percent of matches that Fifa organizes is financing football all over the world.”
Sources: BBC Sport
