Rangers are one of eight sides currently occupying a guaranteed FIFA Club World Cup spot – and it comes with major European incentives.
The game's governing body will kick off the revamped tournament in 2025, which will run every four years with 32 teams. Twelve of those sides will be made up from UEFA, including the Champions League winners between 2020-21 and 2023-24 - meaning Chelsea, Real Madrid and the winners of this year's final would go in automatically - and eight other teams 'determined by a club ranking based on the same four-year period’. FIFA chiefs have ruled though 'that only one slot per nation can come from the coefficient table for the tournament' to ensure greater representation.
According to The Sun, it is why Liverpool and Man United are so keen for the Citizens to win Saturday's UCL final with Inter, as it 'would open up the slot for the two to fight over,' with Jurgen Klopp's men in the driving seat. The report goes on to claim that the other teams currently in position for Club World Cup spots are 'Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Roma, Villarreal, PSG, Benfica, Ajax and Rangers’. Barcelona, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund are among those out in the cold.
It is also claimed the new competition 'will have the biggest club prize pot in the history of the game.' Scotland as a nation are currently ninth in the coefficient chart with a score of 36.400.
In the outlined UEFA timeline between 2021 and 2024, Rangers have currently amassed a score of 38.000. But there are teams close behind them, Belgium's Club Brugge on 35.000 and Ukrainian outfit Shakhtar Donetsk on 31.000
Dinamo Zagreb of Croatia meanwhile are on 33.000. So Rangers have to improve on their 4.000 total from making the Champions League group stage in order to give themselves the best chance of remaining in elite company, with their 2022 run to the Europa League final seeing them claim 19.000. FIFA state 'a cap of two clubs per country will be applied to the access list with an exception in cases where more than two clubs from the same country win the confederation’s premier club competition over the four-year period’.
