FIFA Club World Cup to feature top clubs in Charlotte

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Bayern Munich, one of the top teams in Germany's Bundesliga and a global soccer brand, will play in the first FIFA Club World Cup in June at Bank of America Stadium. Bayern Munich will play Benfica of Portugal on June 24, two days after Real Madrid takes on Pachuca.

Some of the world’s best-known soccer clubs are coming to Charlotte for a new global tournament.

The inaugural FIFA Club World Cup will include four matches at Bank of America Stadium June 22-30 headlined by global powers Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

The four matches kick off with Real Madrid (Spain) against Pachuca (Mexico) on June 22, followed by Benfica (Portugal) against Bayern Munich (Germany) two days later. The round of 16 (No. 1 in Group C vs. 2 Group D is June 28 and Group E’s winner against the second seed from Group F is June 30.

The 63-match tournament includes 32 club teams, include host side Inter Miami and Seattle Sounders from MLS. Inter Miami will kick off play against Al Ahly FC on June 14. Twelve stadiums, including six that host Major League Soccer venues, will host matches. Five are 2026 FIFA World Cup venues.

“The paths for the 32 teams have been set and we now know at what time and where, among 12 top-class stadiums, we will enjoy the 48 exciting group stage clashes,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a statement. 

“This match schedule is much more than a list of thrilling fixtures involving the best clubs in the world – it shows that club football can, and will be, truly global.”

Charlotte made the cut as one of those sites, further solidifying its status as one of the nation’s best soccer markets. With the World Cup coming to North America next year, the club showcase exposes the sport to an emerging soccer culture.

“I’m personally seeing a lot more homegrown players are in the league that are actually very good players, and it shows a lot of what the future has for the league and for the country,” said Manola Zubria, FIFA’s chief tournament officer in the U.S. “For the U.S., it was an easy decision to bring the first 32-team Club World Cup because it’s a market that is hungry for entertainment and for soccer with a World Cup just a year later. It’s also a way to get that fan engagement and the passion of football, this may be club, but it's still football, and some of the same players will repeat next summer.” 

American soccer’s growing stature at home and abroad is an encouraging sign for global soccer, Zubria contends. The sport, long a European stronghold, now has more investment in facilities and athletes on this side of the Atlantic Ocean and fans are showing more interest.

“So much is happening right now in the U.S. with soccer,” he said. “[MLS] … if you compare it to other leagues around the world, it’s at a point now where the beautiful things I’ve seen in this part of the world about soccer, or football, is that you have already established fan bases at each club, and you have these soccer-specific stadiums that clubs, it’s their home and it's a soccer stadium, and that's a big trend from the past.”

The Club World Cup, Zubria maintains, is a bridge to next year’s World Cup, the world’s largest soccer tournament. That makes success in June important to FIFA’s 2026 goals.

“It’s priority to get it right, and we’re confident that things are in place to execute and deliver the tournaments at the level of the World Cup in 2026 we really are confident,” he said. “We hope that it will leave such a positive taste that people will not people will be anxious to wait for 12 months to pass so they can then experience an even a bigger one with 48 teams, 104 games and so on.”

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