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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Alan Smith

Man City to make £4.5m from World Cup plan as Cristiano Ronaldo call costs Man Utd dearly

Manchester City stand to make about £4.5million from a FIFA programme that rewards clubs for providing players to World Cup squads.

In contrast, neighbours Manchester United will be losing out on a six-figure sum because of their decision to terminate Cristiano Ronaldo's contract at the start of the tournament. 16 of Pep Guardiola's players were in action in Qatar - a total only beaten by Barcelona's 17 - and forward Julian Alvarez will line up for Argentina in Sunday's final. United had 13 players at the tournament, not including Ronaldo, and will make a touch more than £2.9m.

FIFA's Club Benefits programme, which is worth £190m, sees every club paid $10,000 (£8,271) per day that a player is with their national team. But United said that the mutual agreement to release the Portugal forward was from “immediate effect”, leaving them ineligible for another slice of the £190m scheme.

Chelsea, who had 12 players selected, will make about £2.5m, while Tottenham, including France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, have 11 representatives, earning about £2.3m.

North London neighbours Arsenal are in line to receive £2.1m for their 10 players and Liverpool, who had only seven members of Jurgen Klopp's side in the Gulf, will make £1.5m.

Brighton, who had eight players, including Argentina’s Alexis MacAllister, benefited most of the clubs outside the traditional Big Six, stand to make about £1.2m.

Who will win Sunday's final between Argentina and France? Have your say in the comments!

But three clubs with only two players who failed to make it past the group stage - Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, Southampton - made only £290,000.

More than 160 players who play club football in England - including 29 from the Championship - were involved with their national team squads. The Spanish leagues were next best on 87 - a little more than half of England's total - with Germany's in third with 80.

Meanwhile, the winners of Sunday afternoon's final will make about £50m in prize money. Yet that is a drop in the ocean of FIFA’s total projected revenue for the year, as the governing body confirmed on Friday afternoon, on the back of stronger-than-expected commercial revenues.

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