Man City slice of Club World Cup history shows why Super League idea should be dead

On the corner of the Middle Corniche in Jeddah, protected by giant steel fences and looking more like one of the opulent palaces that are commonplace in this part of the world, lies the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

A room in the five-star residency for tonight's Club World Cup final will set you back about £500, but for the last couple of weeks, it has had the flags of FIFA flying outside. It's a surprise they weren't at half-mast on Thursday.

This is unmistakably the base of the governing body for the past couple of weeks. It is in this hotel that they signed off plans for a new, expanded Club World Cup less than a week ago. When Manchester City face Fluminese in the King Abdullah Sport City Stadium on Friday, it will be the last final of the current format, one that somehow feels both outdated and quaint.

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The 32-team affair to be played in the United States in June and July 2025 is FIFA's attempt to bring some of that cash floating around the club game into its coffers. It was also part of a strategy to stall breakaway attempts. UEFA and FIFA were bruised and affronted by the plans for a Super League launched in April 2021.

But Thursday's decision by the European Court of Justice that UEFA and FIFA rules banning clubs from joining breakaway competitions is the shadow in which tonight's conclusion of this tournament is being played. It has opened the door, ever so slightly, to the prospect of another attempt at forming a Super League. City were last in and first out two-and-a-half years ago and have no inclination to revisit that tawdry affair.

Doing so without leaving