Manchester United 2025 Club World Cup chances and the Champions League favour Man City could provide

Manchester United head out to America this summer on their pre-season tour and the Reds could still return to the States in the expanded 2025 Club World Cup.

The Reds will return to the Champions League next season under Erik Ten Hag after securing a third place finish in the Premier League. And it means there’s two viable routes into the newly expanded Club World Cup which has its first edition in 2025.

Currently, the Club World Cup is a seven-team tournament that sees the Champions League winners from each confederation, plus the host nation's league champions, compete for the trophy. However, the 2023 edition in Saudi Arabia will be the last under this format.

From 2025, 32 teams will enter the tournament. The USA has been confirmed as the host and will provide one representative. CONMEBOL will provide six teams, CONCACAF, CAF and AFC four each while OFC will have one representative. The remaining 12 clubs will come from Europe.

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That will include the three most recent winners of the Champions League plus next season’s victors. That means Manchester City, Chelsea and Real Madrid have all punched their ticket for the States. United would join them should they lift the trophy next June. That might seem far-fetched but there remains another route in for the Reds.

The remaining eight European slots will be made up by a UEFA four-year ranking system. That formula hasn’t yet been laid out but using the club coefficients, used to determine seedings in UEFA competitions we can gain a clear picture of the running order.

If we take the past four seasons, United would be seventh and would comfortably qualify given three of the six teams