Gold Cup 2025 - the tournament that money forgot
The "other" tournament starting this weekend in the United States
You may have heard there’s a football tournament beginning this weekend in the United States. Teams from various nations are converging to contest a shiny gold trophy and there has been a little controversy in the build-up.
No, not that tournament!
I’m talking about the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup, obviously.
What is supposed to be the flagship international competition for North and Central America and the Caribbean begins tomorrow evening and runs until 6th July.
You would be forgiven for not knowing, given that it has been trampled over and shoved into the gutter by the FIFA Club World Cup, which also begins tomorrow night and runs for an extra week, in the very same host nation.
This clash could hardly have come as a shock to the powers that be, the Gold Cup has consistently taken place over the summer in odd-numbered years for over 20 years and is always hosted solely or partly by the United States. This is both the time and the place for the Gold Cup, but FIFA did not give a damn, and CONCACAF were told not to make a fuss.
If it were not for it providing another convenient dress rehearsal for 2026 FIFA World Cup venues on the west side of the USA (and Vancouver), while the Club World Cup stays in the east, it likely wouldn’t be happening at all.
The Gold Cup has been sidelined not only by FIFA and those defending their mammoth cash grab, but by the countless opinion pieces, podcasts and Substack articles lining up to tell us how awful the Club World Cup is (even if half of them mention how they’re intrigued by Bayern vs Auckland City in their very next sentence).
Players are swerving it, too; United States’ captain Christian Pulisic is one of several players who have “opted” (code for “forced”) to take part in the Club World Cup instead of representing his country on home soil, despite the fact the USMNT are on a four-match losing run and could do with all the help they can get 12 months out from the World Cup.
But none of this is that surprising, as the Gold Cup’s significance has been eroded over several years — in 2016 and 2024 the United States hosted the Copa América, with suggestions of a Pan-American competition accompanying much of the discourse at last summer’s edition. Should such a tournament come to be, you can expect the Gold Cup to be binned in an instant.
The reason for all this is painfully simple; money. Hosting Lionel Messi, in an Argentina shirt in the FIFA World Cup or Copa América, or in an Inter Miami shirt after the Floridians have been shoehorned into Club World Cup, is far more lucrative than, say, Guadeloupe vs Guatemala in Houston.
In theory, the six continental tournaments should be treated equally, but in practice, they are not. I think most fans would say the CONCACAF Gold Cup sits fifth in terms of global prestige, above the OFC Nations Cup but below the middle-ranking Africa Cup of Nations and AFC Asian Cup.
But whether it was the most important, least important, or anywhere in between, it is still a “proper” tournament — a tournament to determine which is the best national team on merit in one of the global game’s six confederations, something that any reasonable fan would argue deserves to exist, but moreover, be respected.
Watch the Club World Cup if you want (I know I’ll be supporting Auckland City all the way), or indeed, turn off the football altogether. But if you do fancy a palate cleanser far away from Gianni Infantino and his billion-dollar circus, give the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup some of the love it deserves.
Anthony Tomas is a writer and commentator, whose words have appeared in World Soccer Magazine, MUNDIAL and Flashscore.
Images: Wikimedia Commons