Eight teams, two from South America, two from Europe and one each from North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania entered the tournament. The first Club World Cup match took place in São Paulo and saw Spanish club Real Madrid beat Saudi Arabian side Al-Nassr 3–1; Real Madrid's Nicolas Anelka scored the first goal in Club World Cup history in the 21st minute. Later the same day, Corinthians goalkeeper Dida kept the first clean sheet in the tournament as his team beat Moroccan side Raja Casablanca 2–0.
Corinthians and Vasco da Gama each won their respective groups to qualify for the final. In front of a crowd of 73,000, the final finished as a 0–0 draw after extra time. The title was decided by a penalty shoot-out which Corinthians won 4–3.[4]
As winners, Corinthians received $6 million in prize money, while Vasco da Gama received $5 million. Necaxa beat Real Madrid in the match for third place to claim $4 million. Real Madrid received $3 million, and the other remaining teams were awarded $2.5 million.[5]
Host bids
Initially, there were nine candidates to host the competition: China, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Tahiti, Turkey, the United States and Uruguay; of the nine, only Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Brazil and Uruguay confirmed their interest to FIFA.[6] On 7 June 1999, the FIFA Emergency Committee appointed Brazil as hosts of the competition during their meeting in Cairo, Egypt.[7]
Matches were played in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The teams were organised in two groups of four teams, with the top team in each group going through to the final and the two second-placed teams contesting a match for third place.
Following the inaugural Club World Cup, FIFA pledged further editions of the tournament. The first of these was slated for Spain in 2001, with an expected 12 participants.[17][18] By March of that year, group draws had even taken place. However, the second edition of the tournament was called off due to a range of factors involving partners and sponsorships, with the collapse of International Sport and Leisure, FIFA's marketing partner at the time, being the most significant.[19] The event was then rescheduled for 2003, but it didn't come to fruition either. It wasn't until 2004 that FIFA was able to officially announce the second edition of the tournament.[20]
From the 2005 edition onwards, the competition has been held continuously but under a new format, featuring single-elimination tournament instead of a group stage plus final, and with a shorter duration, addressing scheduling concerns for national federations and continental confederations. While the two subsequent editions, 2005 and 2006, included only the six continental champions, from the 2007 edition onwards, the number of participants increased to seven – the seventh spot was typically reserved for the national champion of the host country. However, to prevent the recurrence of two clubs from the same country, as happened in 2000, FIFA introduced a mechanism: if the continental champion hailed from the host country, the national champion of that country would forfeit its spot, which would then go to the highest-ranked team from another country in the continental competition.[21]
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