List of world champion football clubs

[12] 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.

[13] The closest thing that happened was the 1957 Tournoi de Paris, which brought together the only continental champions of the time and which served as inspiration for the Intercontinental Cup.

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.

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,[36][37] 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 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,[40] indeed when the sides used to meet in a one-off game in Japan (and even before), this was still a fair fight.