Have Club World Cup attendances really been that bad?

The Athletic has live coverage of Benfica vs. Chelsea at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.

The group stage of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup has concluded and 48 of the tournament’s 63 matches have now taken place.

The competition, which is being hosted in the United States, drew plenty of criticism in the build-up — including for how many games were being held in large, out-of-town stadiums in cities traditionally lacking in football (or soccer) fandom.

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So what have attendances actually been like? How many stadiums have come close to filling all of their seats? How have crowd sizes compared to the American-hosted 1994 men’s World Cup and previous Club World Cups? And which have been the most and least-watched teams and groups at the tournament?

Here, The Athletic dives into the numbers and lays out the facts surrounding the attendances so far.

Firstly, this is what the attendance has been at each game so far at the tournament. The figures are based on FIFA’s official attendances, which it says records the number of people through the turnstiles at each game (the below table is sortable).

2025 Club World Cup group-stage attendances Game Stadium Attendance Al Ahly v Inter Miami Hard Rock Stadium 60,927 Bayern Munich v Auckland City TQL Stadium 21,152 Paris Saint-Germain v Atletico Madrid Rose Bowl 80,619 Palmeiras v Porto MetLife Stadium 46,275 Botafogo v Seattle Sounders Lumen Field 30,151 Chelsea v LAFC Mercedes-Benz Stadium 22,137 Boca Juniors v Benfica Hard Rock Stadium 55,574 Flamengo v Esperance Tunis Lincoln Financial Field 25,797 Fluminense v Borussia Dortmund MetLife Stadium 34,736 River Plate v Urawa Red Diamonds Lumen Field 11,974 Ulsan HD v Mamelodi Sundowns Inter&Co Stadium 3,412 Monterrey v Inter Rose Bowl 40,311 Manchester City v Wydad Lincoln Financial Field 37,446 Real Madrid v Al Hilal Hard Rock Stadium 62,415 Pachuca v Red Bull Salzburg TQL Stadium 5,282 Al Ain v Juventus Audi Field 18,161 Palmeiras v Al Ahly MetLife Stadium 35,179 Inter Miami v Porto Mercedes-Benz Stadium 31,783 Seattle Sounders v Atletico Madrid Lumen Field 51,636 Paris Saint-Germain v Botafogo Rose Bowl 53,699 Benfica v Auckland City Inter&Co Stadium 6,730 Flamengo v Chelsea Lincoln Financial Field 54,619 LAFC v Esperance Tunis Geodis Park 13,651 Bayern Munich v Boca Juniors Hard Rock Stadium 63,587 Mamelodi Sundowns v Borussia Dortmund TQL Stadium 14,006 Inter v Urawa Red Diamonds Lumen Field 25,090 Fluminense v Ulsan HD MetLife Stadium 29,321 River Plate v Monterrey Rose Bowl 57,393 Juventus v Wydad Lincoln Financial Field 31,975 Real Madrid v Pachuca Bank of America Stadium 70,248 Red Bull Salzburg v Al Hilal Audi Field 16,167 Manchester City v Al Ain Mercedes-Benz Stadium 40,392 Seattle Sounders v Paris Saint-Germain Lumen Field 50,628 Atletico Madrid v Botafogo Rose Bowl 22,992 Inter Miami v Palmeiras Hard Rock Stadium 60,914 Porto v Al Ahly MetLife Stadium 39,893 Auckland City v Boca Juniors Geodis Park 16,899 Benfica v Bayern Munich Bank of America Stadium 33,287 LAFC v Flamengo Camping World Stadium 32,933 Esperance Tunis v Chelsea Lincoln Financial Field 32,967 Borussia Dortmund v Ulsan HD TQL Stadium 8,239 Mamelodi Sundowns v Fluminense Hard Rock Stadium 14,312 Inter v River Plate Lumen Field 45,135 Urawa Red Diamonds v Monterrey Rose Bowl 14,312 Juventus v Manchester City Camping World Stadium 54,320 Wydad v Al Ain Audi Field 10,785 Al Hilal v Pachuca Geodis Park 14,147 Red Bull Salzburg v Real Madrid Lincoln Financial Field 64,811

FIFA has confirmed the attendance for both Mamelodi Sundowns vs Fluminense and Urawa Red Diamonds vs Monterrey (both played on June 25) was, by coincidence, exactly 14,312.

The 80,619 fans who watched Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain thrash Atletico Madrid at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California is the highest attendance of the tournament so far.

This match is, for now, the best-attended game in Club World Cup history. The previous highest reported attendances were the 73,000 who watched Manchester United vs Vasco da Gama (group stage) and Corinthians vs Vasco da Gama (final) at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro in the inaugural version of the competition in 2000.

PSG v Atletico is the highest-attended game in Club World Cup history so far (Harry How/Getty Images)

The lowest attendance is the 3,412 present for South Korean side Ulsan HD’s clash with Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa at the Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida on June 17, which was also delayed for 65 minutes given fears of thunderstorms. The nearby Walt Disney World averages that many visitors roughly every 30 minutes.

The last men’s World Cup game to have a lower attendance was Wales vs Hungary in a group-stage play-off in Sweden in 1958 (2,823) and the last Premier League match (excluding games during the coronavirus pandemic) to attract a smaller crowd was Wimbledon vs Everton at Selhurst Park in January 1993, with just 3,039 people at the ground.

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It is not, however, the lowest-attended Club World Cup match ever (excluding games held during the pandemic). That distinction is held by the second-round match between Mexican club Leon and Japanese side Urawa Red Diamonds at the 2023 tournament in Saudi Arabia. Just 2,525 people (in a 27,000-capacity ground) watched Urawa win 1-0.

The average attendance at the 2025 Club World Cup has been 34,759. The average across the previous 18 — much smaller — editions that were not affected by the pandemic was 32,505. While, at face value, this suggests attendances have been better than usual for the tournament, larger stadiums have been used for this edition, which must be taken into account.

Here is the average attendance for each day of the tournament. The highest figure, on June 14, was set on the first day of the competition, when the only game was between Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami and Egyptian side Al Ahly at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

The lowest was on June 25, when the final games in Groups E and F took place. Three of the four matches were attended by fewer than 15,000 people and just 14,312 people watched Monterrey’s victory over Urawa Red Diamonds at the Rose Bowl. That meant more than 75,000 seats — a figure higher than Old Trafford’s total capacity — were left empty at the stadium that hosted the 1994 World Cup final.

Looking at the 12 stadiums being used for the tournament, the Hard Rock Stadium tops the list for percentage of seats filled. The ground in south Florida has been, on average, 81.8 per cent full during its six games hosted so far. Notably, two of these matches have involved Messi. The lowest is the Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, which has only been 19.9 per cent full.

The MetLife Stadium in New Jersey — which will host both the final of this tournament and next summer’s World Cup, which the U.S. is jointly hosting with Canada and Mexico — has the third-lowest percentage of seats filled so far, with just under 45.

The club to have played in front of the most fans so far at the tournament are record 15-time European champions Real Madrid with a total of 197,474, averaging 65,825 over their three games. And the side to have been the least-watched are Mamelodi Sundowns, who totalled 31,730 at an average of 10,577 per game.

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The group with the highest total attendance was Group B (PSG, Botafogo, Atletico and Seattle Sounders) with 289,725 at an average of 48,288 per match and the one with the lowest total attendance was Group F (Borussia Dortmund, Fluminense, Mamelodi Sundowns and Ulsan HD) with 104,026, averaging 17,338.

So, how does the group stage at the 2025 Club World Cup, with an average attendance of 34,759, compare to the 1994 World Cup in the U.S.? Well, that tournament 31 years ago averaged 67,526 for group-stage attendance — not far off double what we have seen this summer.

As for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, that averaged 51,188 in the groups and the average attendance across the 380 Premier League games in 2024-25 was 40,423.

But a word of caution when comparing different competitions across different eras: this is the first edition of the rebranded Club World Cup and it is far less popular than the World Cup and the Premier League, so the lower attendance figures are to be expected.

So while crowd sizes have not been — on the whole — disastrous so far, FIFA will hope they increase during the knockout stage. And, at next year’s World Cup, the sport’s governing body will be desperate to avoid the scenes we have seen at several games this summer, with well over 50,000 empty seats in some stadiums.

Even so, the added prestige and global interest in the World Cup will inevitably mean higher attendances in the group stage of that tournament — although ticket prices and difficulty in reaching some out-of-town stadiums could pose a challenge.

(Top photo: Ulsan HD v Mamelodi Sundowns attracted a tournament-low 3,412 fans to the Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida; Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)

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