Which teams are in the Club World Cup 2025? How teams qualified

We're here on the edge of a 32-team tournament in the States with the full line-up of sides from all corners of the globe – but you'd be forgiven for not really understanding how they got there in the first place.

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Manchester City and Chelsea will represent the Premier League despite not winning it this term. Real Madrid fly the flag for La Liga without winning it this term. Inter Miami are there, well, because they just are.

RadioTimes.com attempts to shed a light on which teams have qualified for the Club World Cup 2025 and most pressingly... how.

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Which teams have qualified for the Club World Cup 2025?

• Argentina: River Plate and Boca Juniors
• Austria: Red Bull Salzburg
• Brazil: Palmeiras, Flamengo, Fluminense and Botafogo
• Egypt: Al Ahly
• England: Chelsea and Manchester City
• France: Paris St-Germain
• Germany: Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund
• Italy: Inter Milan and Juventus
• Japan: Urawa Red Diamonds
• Mexico: Monterrey and Pachuca
• Morocco: Wydad AC
• New Zealand: Auckland City
• Portugal: Porto and Benfica
• Saudi Arabia: Al-Hilal
• South Africa: Mamelodi Sundowns
• South Korea: Ulsan HD
• Spain: Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid
• Tunisia: Esperance de Tunis
• United Arab Emirates: Al Ain
• United States: Seattle Sounders, Los Angeles FC and Inter Miami

How did teams qualify for the Club World Cup 2025?

We're going to try and make this as simple and concise as possible. Thirty-two teams from 20 countries have qualified for the tournament.

There are six continental football confederations: Asia (AFC), Africa (CAF), North and Central America (CONCACAF), South America (CONMEBOL), Oceania (OFC) and Europe (UEFA).

Each confederation boasts its own continental tournaments. For example, the UEFA Champions League in Europe.

The winners of the last four editions of each elite competition have all qualified, aside from the OFC, whose sole representative, Auckland City of New Zealand, qualified as the best-performing winner over the last four years.

Each confederation is assigned a number of slots in the Club World Cup tournament. After competition winners are assigned, the remaining places go to teams with the best records in those elite competitions over the past four years based on a convoluted equation Einstein himself would work himself into a fluster over.

To complicate matters further, only two teams can qualify per nation (unless three or more teams from the same country have won their elite continental competition in the last four years).

To use an example, RB Salzburg made the cut after the first 11 UEFA places were occupied by 1) the last four Champions League winners (prior to 2025) and 2) the highest-ranked teams in the Champions League, maxing out at two entries per country.

This process, repeated across all confederations, yielded 31 teams. Thirty-one.

One final place is awarded to the host nation and FIFA itself reserves the right to assign which team gets the spot. Step up, David Beckham-owned Inter Miami, with Lionel Messi on their books.

Funny how these things just seem to work out, right?

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