Manchester City are going to the Club World Cup to win, warns chairman | OneFootball

Khaldoon Al Mubarak has warned Manchester City’s rivals at this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup that they are taking the competition as serious as ever.

Manchester City’s chairman delved into a wide range of subjects whilst reviewing the club’s performance over the course of the 2024-25 campaign, with Pep Guardiola and co surrendering their Premier League crown to Liverpool and exiting the UEFA Champions League at the Round of 16 stage.

It turned from bad to worse for the 2023 treble winners – who won the Premier League consecutively for four years between 2021-24 – when Crystal Palace narrowly beat them in the FA Cup final, leaving the FA Community Shield as the only piece of silverware Manchester City lifted this term.

Hugo Viana is replacing Txiki Begiristain as director of football in the coming months as Manchester City pursue four to five first-team signings to challenge on all fronts in the 2025-26 campaign – after a sub-standard year on the pitch where they failed to meet the standards they have set for themselves under Guardiola over the years.

Speaking during his annual end-of-season interview with Manchester City‘s in-house media team, the club chairman spoke openly about his thoughts on the upcoming FIFA Club World Cup tournament and how Pep Guardiola’s first-team squad are going to approach the matter.

“This is a very, very serious competition (the FIFA Club World Cup),” the Etihad Stadium chairman admitted.

“In the summer, the whole world will be watching this. A big number of the top teams in the world will be competing in this tournament.

“And I can assure you, we’re going to give it our best shot. We’re going in there to win it,” he added. “We’re going to go and try to win this tournament.”

Al Mubarak also outlined the club’s ambitions of securing all new signings for the 2025-26 campaign in time for the Club World Cup, with Manchester City’s first-team squad currently recovering on holiday but expected back in Manchester a few weeks’ time.

“This is the beginning of the new season, not the continuation of last season. You know, we take some rest,” Al Mubarak added.

“The team will take the rest that they will take right now, and then they start pre-season and then immediately straight into the into the Club World Cup.”

Manchester City are working on deals to sign Lyon’s Rayan Cherki, AC Milan’s Tijjani Reijnders whilst holding a strong interest in Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White, Wolves’ Rayan Ait-Nouri and Newcastle full-back Valentino Livramento.