FIFA president Gianni Infantino confirmed this week that if Club Leon is forced to vacate its spot at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, it could be decided by a playoff between LAFC and Club America.
"What we're looking at is that," Infantino told reporters, "if the CAS upholds the Appeals Committee's decision, FIFA's intention is to play a playoff match between the team that lost the Concacaf Champions League final, LAFC, and the next-place team in the rankings, which is América."
Leon was removed from the 32-team field earlier this month, based on FIFA's regulation that no owner or ownership group could hold controlling interests of multiple teams in the field. Leon, which won the 2023 Concacaf title, and last year's title winners CF Pachuca are both owned by Grupo Pachuca. Leon has indicated it is appealing the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Costa Rican club LD Alajuelense is also involved in that process, having initially appealed to CAS on the grounds that Leon's participation was illegal, and thus LD Alajuelense should get the spot instead. Alajuelense's case is based on the Club World Cup tournament restriction that no more than two clubs from the same nation should be represented unless they have all won the confederation's top club tournament title. Even without Leon, Liga MX will still have two representatives, as will MLS.
A narrowing timeline
The CAS will hear LD Alajuelense's case on April 23, and that of Leon on the week beginning May 5.
If it rules that FIFA has correctly removed Pachuca, but that the spot should not be Alajuelense's, then the potential LAFC-Club America playoff comes into play. LAFC would earn the opportunity as the 2023 runners-up to Leon, and Club America by virtue of being the highest-ranked Concacaf club in FIFA's club rankings that is not already in the Club World Cup field.
Presumably, the winner of that match would take Leon's place in Group D, beginning with a group game against Chelsea on June 16.
But there's not exactly a ton of time to iron out these details. So when could these two find time to meet?
The most likely scenario?
Given the date of the CAS hearing is still not for several weeks, the most likely scenario is a match on the weekend of June 8, both in terms of having time to plan logistics and being sure both clubs will have an open date.
But it could be considered a disadvantage for Club America if they are eliminated from the Liga MX playoffs at an early stage since LAFC has scheduled league matches throughout May and would be in a more regular rhythm.
We don't know how that will unfold yet, of course. But a similar scenario arose last year in the Concacaf Champions Cup final, with CF Pachuca lost in the Liga MX quarterfinals and then had to wait three full weeks to play their Concacaf final against Columbus. It turned out not to be such a disadvantage, as Pachuca were 3-0 victors.