Treble winners and four-time consecutive Premier League champions, Man City, could collect arguably their easiest payday yet this summer by playing just seven matches, as it has been confirmed that the total prize money pot for the 2025 Club World Cup is a whopping $1 billion.
We know you can’t hear us through the screen but just know there was an audible gulp.
That’s right, the winner of this year’s FIFA Club World Cup competition will not only get to don the same golden badge as Manchester City did last season but also be able to claim the biggest chunk of an equivalent £775m in British sterling should they emerge victorious.
Not only does this now make the upcoming edition of the international club tournament the most lucrative one in world football but it will also be the biggest single pot of prize money ever won in the sport’s history.
BREAKING: FIFA to announce prize money of $1 billion for Club World Cup for 32 teams, which includes Chelsea and Man City 🚨💰 pic.twitter.com/Gd6Ty5tykC
Set to take place in the US this summer from Saturday, 14 June to Sunday, 13 July, the 2025 Club World Cup will be a revamped version of the competition that had already been won once by City, once by Manchester United, and once by Liverpool.
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It only began back in 2000, with Brazilian side Corinthians winning the inaugural edition and giants such as Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona going on to lift the trophy multiple times – Los Blancos boasting the most with five wins.
Cut to the present day and following major sponsorship and broadcasting deals being struck in recent months, with DAZN securing exclusive worldwide broadcasting rights as well as 24 games being televised by TNT Sports (formerly BT Sport).
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For a long time, the significance of the Club World Cup has been put to one side and merely dismissed a series of glorified pre-season friendlies by teams and their supporters alike.
However, it’s fair to say that offering figures in the region of £100m or maybe even upwards of that for just four weeks of work, as Kaveh Solhekol puts it, will no doubt see plenty of teams change their tune. In theory, they don’t even need to win them all to get their hands on it either.
To put these figures into context, the total prize money for the 2022 Qatar World Cup was $440 million (approx. £341.8m); Argentina got almost £33m of that and the winner of this current UEFA Champions League campaign will earn around £21.1m on top of the roughly £15.7m they get for qualifying.
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So yeah, it’s very big money…
Only Chelsea and Man City are among those representing the UK in the tournament this summer, and although the Blues haven’t been at their very brilliant best this season, you would bank on beating a lot of the big hitters contending for the Club World Cup title this year.
Major European names include record-winners Madrid as well as their Athletico; Bayern and Borussia Dortmund; PSG, Inter, Juventus and Benfica, not to mention the likes of Messi‘s Inter Miami – who have the home nation advantage – Palmeiras, River Plate, Boca Juniors and more from outside the continent.
Although FIFA is yet to confirm exactly how much the winner of this £1 billion competition will take home, in the instance of the now record-breaking 2025 Club World Cup, it seems that it really is the taking part that counts.
Even if the estimate of £77.5m for the champion is vaguely accurate, that’s game-changing money for any team, especially Man City given the shadow of FFP, PSR and the now 130 alleged charges still looming over them.
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Investigations and slightly nauseating levels of money on the line aside, as is often the case with football these days, City continue to become an increasingly massive and truly global club.
So much so that the Etihad Campus won’t soon just be a stadium and series of sports facilities but a year-round ‘entertainment destination’.
The Manchester 24 Hour Run raises over £70,000 for the region’s homeless community
Danny Jones
The numbers are in for the 2025 Manchester 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness, which saw hordes of runners take over the city centre to generate money for the ever-crucial cause.
Having set an ambitious target of £50,000, not only did they manage to achieve their goal, they absolutely SMASHED it, totalling more than £70k.
In fact, with last-minute donations and matching contributions still trickling in over a fortnight on from this year’s event, the final figure is actually set to surpass that by several thousands.
Simply incredible stuff. Speaking on the night, here’s what the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, had to say about another inspiring edition of the annual endurance relay.
Running in the wind and rain, dashing through puddles in the cold, the pitch black and all through the night into the fresh cold Manc morning this month, more than a thousand volunteers, locals, businesses, and more laced up their trainers for the seventh edition in six years.
For those unaware, this event is a recurring 5k relay loop around Manchester, with the route designed to run around parts of the city centre where you can witness homelessness first-hand.
Taking place in November every year – when the region is even more dark, grey and wet than usual – this also gives participants an opportunity to further empathise with the discomfort felt by rough sleepers.
Well over 4,000 individuals and 165 organisations have taken part in this initiative since 2019, funding more than 70,000 nights of accommodation through the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity and its ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme. That tally is set to jump massively, once again, after this year’s run.
Here’s how the 2025 stats on the tarmac break down:
100 running clubs and organisations
Over 1,500 individual runners and walkers
44 x five-kilometre consecutive relay laps run
Over £188,700* raised across all events and years.
Multiple sponsors, including Autotrader, Accenture and Mistral
Credit: Ed Hill (supplied)
In 2025, the 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness also successfully expanded to Sheffield and Hereford for the first time, as well as returning to Birmingham for its second year.
The event unites local running communities to support local organisations. Better still, in 2026, the event is expected to expand again; for instance, after a rescheduling, the event is heading over to Yorkshire once more for the inaugural edition of The Leeds 24 Hour Run in March 2026.
Reflecting on the event’s seventh year, The 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness co-founder, Thomas Lewis, says: “Every year I think we’ve hit our peak in terms of fundraising and turnout, and every year we somehow manage to surpass it. I’m completely blown away by the support and dedication of the Manchester running community. Bring on next year.”
Fran Darlington-Pollock, the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity’s outgoing CEO, added: “We’re so proud to continue supporting this incredible event and all the hard work that goes into making it such a success year after year.
“The passion and dedication of the organisers, runners, and supporters are truly inspiring, and we’re so grateful for the funds raised, which help people experiencing homelessness through A Bed Every Night.”
Anyone still wanting to make a donation can do so by visiting The 24 Hour Run website and the attached JustGiving page HERE, which will remain open for a few weeks following the event.
There are plenty of other ways we can help fight homelessness throughout the year, and it’s by pursuing vital causes like this that we truly put the great in Greater Manchester.
Greater Manchester stadiums included in the bid to host the Women’s World Cup confirmed
Danny Jones
The locations for the official UK bid to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup have been revealed, along with the Greater Manchester football stadiums chosen for the honour.
Not exactly a ground-breaking spoiler, but the FA did make a somewhat curious choice when they shared the news.
In case you hadn’t heard the news earlier this year, our nation has officially thrown its hat into the ring for the Women’s World Cup (WWC) in 2035, with England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all set to offer up their arenas as part of the record-breaking proposal.
Naturally, a region as footy-obsessed as ours and with two of the biggest stadiums in the country was always going to be included, but as mentioned, there was a particular detail that lots of people quickly noticed following the announcement.
Yes, in a slightly bizarre but ultimately innocuous turn of events, Etihad Stadium – home of Manchester City FC – has been selected, as was the world-famous ‘Theatre of Dreams‘, the only difference being that it was listed separately from the city itself.
Instead, Man United’s iconic home turf, Old Trafford, has been listed as just that: in Trafford, specifically, as opposed to simply being listed in the same section as its sky blue counterpart.
Now, while it’s true that all 10 boroughs have their own identity, culture (not to mention some subscribing to still being part of Lancashire or even Cheshire), it did strike us and others as a bit odd to put that rather iconic and equally historic venue down as almost separate from the city.
Many would argue that one of the things Manchester is best known for around the globe is the team of Red Devils that play at that ground.
Naturally, ‘Cityzens‘ have had their fair share of fun with the post and, conversely, there’s been plenty of retorts regarding ‘supporters from Stockport’, as you would expect…
Nevertheless, we’re just glad to see the Etihad and Old Trafford continuing to cater to some of the biggest dates on the sporting calendar.
Some have actually argued that the region should have been given opportunities to host more stadiums and/or games as part of the market pitch, as the likes of both Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic’s stadiums were floated as viable or even better alternatives, capacity-wise.
Either way, with the 22 venues that have been selected for the UK’s bid for the 2035 Women’s World Cup and us Brits currently unopposed in the race to secure the tournament, the FA are going all-in for the 48-team competition, which would be “the biggest single-sport event ever staged in the UK.”
You can read more down below.
Our shared ambition: to host the largest single-sport event ever staged in the UK, and the first FIFA World Cup in this country since 1966.#AllTogetherpic.twitter.com/y6GOPEPDdG
Danny Jones -
6th March 2025 
