FIFA President Gianni Infantino has praised Tunisian giants Espérance Sportive de Tunis for their commendable performance at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, describing their campaign as both inspiring and symbolic of Africa’s rising football stature.
In a statement following the tournament’s group stages, Infantino highlighted Esperance’s run as a reflection of the Club World Cup’s core mission, to elevate top clubs from across all confederations and place them on a global platform.
“In my opinion, they had a very nice performance sportingly,” Infantino said. “It's an achievement to qualify for the competition. To win to qualify to the next stage, against Chelsea; one of the big clubs in Europe, it was big for them.”
Esperance, representing CAF as one of Africa’s top-performing clubs, faced a challenging group that included European powerhouse Chelsea. Their victory against the English club marked a significant moment in African club football, drawing admiration from fans and pundits worldwide.
“Esperance really did honour to Tunisian football, to African football with extraordinary performances here in the United States,” Infantino remarked. “The objective of the FIFA Club World Cup is precisely to give a platform to teams like Esperance (from North Africa), who are big teams on the African continent but who haven't yet had this global platform.”
While Esperance narrowly missed out on qualification for the knockout rounds, their effort did not go unnoticed.
“It's been a long run, but I think it's a very promising run because we saw that Espérance played well and were involved till their last game to qualify,” the FIFA President noted. “We can only say that they failed sportingly by not qualifying.”
Infantino emphasized the importance of tournaments like the Club World Cup in creating new opportunities for clubs outside the traditional European and South American powerhouses.
“We want to give them this platform to be able to shine, to be able to make these players shine, to be able to invest even more in football and to be able to really compete with the big European teams.”
Espérance’s spirited performances and their memorable victory against Chelsea have left a lasting impression, reinforcing the belief that African clubs are edging ever closer to competing on equal footing with the world’s elite.
As the tournament progresses, the focus now turns to how FIFA and African federations can further support clubs like Esperance, not only to participate but to dominate on the global stage.
