MLSPA upset by prize money allocation for Club World Cup

LOS ANGELES – The announcement of the 2025 Club World Cup excited soccer fans around the world, finally giving fans a club equivalent to the biggest tournament in sports. As excitement boils over, disputes from Major League Soccer players exposed a flaw in the workings of the competition.

As the Club World Cup opened play Saturday, competing MLS players have been lobbying for a payment system that they deem to be more fair.

As revealed by the MLS Players Association, a typical distribution of prize money is an even split between the league and players.

For the Club World Cup, FIFA is giving each MLS team a minimum of $9.55 million for its participation in the competition, with the clubs being able to earn more based on their performance in the tournament.

With $9.55 million going to the clubs, the league offered to pay players a fixed amount of $1 million, with no performance-based bonuses. $1 million would equate to about 10% of the minimum prize money.

If an MLS team won the tournament, the $1 million given to players would equate to 1% of the total prize money.

“It’s a distraction for sure, there’s no way to beat around that bush,” LAFC defender Ryan Hollingshead said. “To travel away from our families onto the East Coast for two weeks, play in some of the biggest games this club has ever been a part of and there’s literally zero incentive for the player.”

The World Cup is the most watched sporting event in the world. The tournament is played every four years, pitting national teams against each other. The lesser known club equivalent, the Club World Cup, has existed since 2000.

In 2023, FIFA announced that the Club World Cup would be getting an adjustment in format. Before the introduction of the new system, the Club World Cup would be completed between seven teams. Qualification was earned by the champions of each continent’s club tournament, alongside one host bid.

However, the new format would expand the competition by a multiplier of four, with 32 teams now competing in a competition that masks the format of the FIFA World Cup.

As slots to enter the competition were divided, it was announced that Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football would be given four entries. Each was given to the winners of the last four CONCACAF Champions Cups.

However, FIFA removed Leon, the winner of the 2023 CONCACAF Champions Cup, which violated rules on multi-club ownership, leaving a spot open for another CONCACAF club. FIFA announced that LAFC and Mexican team Club America would compete for the open spot in a match on May 31.

LAFC, hosting the clash, won the game in extra time off the back of a Denis Bouanga goal in the 115th minute.

As LAFC qualified, the Seattle Sounders, which earned entry to the Club World Cup by winning the 2022 CONCACAF Champions Cup, voiced concerns over the competition, wearing shirts that read “Club World Cup cash grab” before its June 1 match against Minnesota United.

The Players Association then joined in with a statement on twitter.

The MLSPA and all MLS players stand united with the Seattle Sounders players who tonight demanded a fair share of the FIFA Club World Cup prize money. #FairShareNow #FIFACWC

Full statement: pic.twitter.com/AAVyGYehxH

— MLSPA (@MLSPA) June 1, 2025

LAFC players, qualifying the day before Sounders players spoke up, heard the complaints of Sounders players and joined in on the sentiment.

Hollingshead understood the importance of speaking up.

“Something needs to change,” said Hollingshead, who played his 300th MLS game on June 8. “Otherwise the players are forced to take it into our own hands and make a scene of it. And that’s not what anybody wants. It’s not what we want to do. We’re footballers, we’re not advertisers or picketers, we are footballers. We want to play the game.”

In the Club World Cup, LAFC will play a minimum of three games in eight days, with their home training ground being over 2,000 from Los Angeles. If the team moves on, it could play a maximum of seven games in 27 days.

LAFC will train and live in Macon, Georgia, practicing at Mercer University’s practice grounds for the duration of the competition. The team will play Monday in Atlanta, Friday in Nashville and in Orlando on June 24.

As MLS and its Players Association failed to reach a conclusion days after Seattle players initially spoke up, MLSPA released a second statement on Twitter.

“The timing, substance, and retaliatory nature of the proposal sends a clear message: MLS does not respect or value players’ efforts with regard to this tournament,” the statement said. “Although not surprised, the players and the MLSPA are deeply disappointed by this message.”

As conversations continue, LAFC striker Jeremhy Ebobisse is confused why it has taken so long to find a solution.

“It’s unacceptable, the proposal that we’ve gotten,” said Ebobisse, who is a co-founder and vice president of Black Players for Change, an organization working to advocate for equality in sports. “It’s beyond me why we would want to unsettle the players, be it here at LAFC, in Miami or in Seattle, by sending proposals that clearly are not meeting the mark and then trying to see who’s going to blink first.

“We should be working together to get the best motivation out of our players … I have no doubt that we will put it aside and get to where we need to get to. But again, it’s just a needless distraction.”

While Ebobisee doesn’t understand why finding a solution has taken this amount of time, Hollingshead wonders why the disputes happened in the first place.

“It doesn’t matter if we win, draw, we get zero more dollars as incentive,” Hollingshead said. “That’s crazy. The fact that we’re even having these conversations is crazy.”