List of world champion football clubs



This list includes the official (de jure) world champion football clubs recognized by FIFA, as well as clubs that won unrecognized world tournaments like the Copa Rio and the Small Club World Cup. The official competitions that grant this title are the Intercontinental Cup (1960–2004) and the FIFA Club World Cup (2000, 2005–present).

Intercontinental Cup
The Intercontinental Cup, also known as European/South American Cup, was an official international football competition endorsed by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL),  contested between representative clubs from these confederations, usually the winners of the European Champions' Cup (now known as the UEFA Champions League), and the South American Copa Libertadores. The competition was played by representative clubs of most developed continents in the football world; has since been replaced by the FIFA Club World Cup. All editions were official UEFA and CONMEBOL competitions, and indirectly also of FIFA. In accordance with the regulations integrated in the FIFA Statute, official competitions for club teams can be defined as those organized under the auspices of FIFA, confederations and member associations, or authorized by them, excluding friendly matches and test matches; say the confederal and interconfederal cups (arranged by FIFA or confederations), the championships and the national cups (arranged by member associations). cfr. cfr. cfr. cfr. cfr. cfr. From its formation in 1960 to 1979, the competition was contested over a two-legged tie, with a playoff if necessary until 1968, and penalty kicks later. During the 1970s, European participation in the Intercontinental Cup became a running question due to controversial events in the 1969 final, and some European Champions Club' winner teams withdrew. From 1980 until 2004, the competition was contested over a single match held in Japan and sponsored by multinational automaker Toyota, which offered a secondary trophy (that flanked the original), the Toyota Cup.

Throughout the history of football, various attempts have been made to organise a tournament that identifies "the best club team in the world" – such as the Football World Championship, the Lipton Trophy, the Pequeña Copa del Mundo - due to FIFA's lack of interest or inability to organise club competitions. The Intercontinental Cup is considered by FIFA as the official predecessor to the FIFA Club World Cup, which was held for the first time in 2000.

All the winning teams were regarded by worldwide mass media and the football community, FIFA included (as News Center productions and not cataloged on the FIFA website as official entity documents), as "world champions" ''de facto.   On 27 October 2017, the FIFA Council, while not promoting statistical unification between the Intercontinental Cup and the Club World Cup, in respect to the history of the two tournaments (which merged in 2005), has officialised (de jure'') the title of the Intercontinental Cup, recognising all the winners as official club world champions,   with the same title of the FIFA Club World Cup winners, or "FIFA Club World Champions".

FIFA Club World Cup
FIFA Club World Cup is an international men's association football competition organised by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament officially assigns the world title. The competition was first contested in 2000 as the FIFA Club World Championship. It was not held between 2001 and 2004 due to a combination of factors, most importantly the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner International Sport and Leisure. Since 2005, the competition has been held every year, and has been hosted by Brazil, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco. The FIFA Club World Cup's prestige is perceived quite differently in different parts of the football world; while it is widely regarded as the most distinguished club-level trophy in South America, it struggles to attract interest in most of Europe compared to the UEFA Champions League and commonly lacks recognition as a high-ranking contest.

The first FIFA Club World Championship took place in Brazil in 2000. but the failure of ISL caused FIFA to discontinue the tournament and cancel the following year competition to be held in Spain. This first failed installment ran parallel with the Intercontinental Cup (also known as European/South American Cup), a competition organized jointly by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL) first disputed in 1960 by the winners of the European Champions Cup and the Copa Libertadores. FIFA finally managed to buy the prestigious Japanese Event and in 2005, after the Intercontinental Cup's last edition, that competition was merged with FIFA. The failed FIFA Club World Cup's first edition was renamed as "FIFA Club World Championship" and a new Trophy replaced the Intercontinental Cup Trophy as well as the Toyota Cup. In 2006, the tournament took its current name.

The current format of the tournament involves seven teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation over a period of about two weeks; the winners of that year's AFC Champions League (Asia), CAF Champions League (Africa), CONCACAF Champions League (North America), Copa Libertadores (South America), OFC Champions League (Oceania) and UEFA Champions League (Europe), along with the host nation's national champions, participate in a straight knock-out tournament. The host nation's national champions dispute a play-off against the Oceania champions, from which the winner joins the champions of Asia, Africa, and North America at the quarter-finals. The quarter-final winners go on to face the European and South American champions, who enter the semi-final stage, for a place in the final. In Europe the tournament is almost ignored by the mass media, also because of its sporting level, considered inferior to the Intercontinental Cup, indeed when the sides used to meet in a one-off game in Japan (and even before), this was still a fair fight. The opening up of the global market in football has changed the balance. These days the best South Americans (and the stars from all the other continents) are usually playing in Europe.

By club
In synthesis FIFA has two types of world champions Intercontinental Cup and those deriving from the Club World Cup (the two competitions, albeit different, confer the same title, that of FIFA club world champions) so in accordance to what is officially communicated by FIFA, the total count of official  world titles is as follows:


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Vice-world champions in football

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Unrecognised tournaments
Before the tournaments of today, there were two tournaments that may be considered to be the early beginnings of the FIFA Club World Cup; these are the Copa Rio and the Small Club World Cup bowl held during the early 1950s, however, these have been challenged by FIFA for world championships status. The Copa Rio, first initiated in 1951, was the very first international club competition that included Europe an South American teams such as Juventus and Palmeiras. Another Copa club competition of the world club tournament was the Small Club World Cup before 1952, in 1957 and mostly in Venezuela where clubs like Real Madrid and Corinthians competed. While these tournaments are helping in promoting international relations and competition, FIFA does not classify them as world championships; there have been disputes on whether these tournaments hold any significant value as part of the history of football.

Small Club World Cup
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