FIFA Club World Cup 2025

2025FIFA2D/3D Motion Design

A new global club tournament needed a visual identity that could travel between twelve stadiums and still respond to individual clubs. For FIFA Club World Cup 2025, trophy imagery, team sequences and match information were part of a larger delivery challenge: retain a consistent tournament world across very different LED canvases and a fast-moving competition schedule.

My contribution: 2D/3D Motion Design, in collaboration with Velvet for FIFA.

Recognition before the reveal

The opening compositions work with fragments rather than the complete trophy. Gold edges and dark negative space frame the tournament name, giving the identity a recognisable material character before the object is revealed. That contrast connects the abstract opening to the more detailed trophy sequences below.

The tournament at a glance

• Almost 2.5 million cumulative stadium attendances.
• 12 stadiums · 11 host cities across the United States.
• 32 clubs · 63 matches, with every match streamed live and free on DAZN.
• 2.7 billion estimated global audience across all media, according to preliminary Nielsen Sports analysis reported by FIFA.
• 9 million new followers across the tournament’s official social accounts.

These figures describe the tournament’s scale. Attendance is cumulative across matches; the global audience includes multiple media channels and is not an online-only viewing figure or a measure of this animation’s reach.

The trophy as a world of its own

The trophy’s detail provides a bridge between an intimate reveal and a stadium-scale identity. Engravings and interlocking rings offer recognisable material cues even before the whole object is visible. Moving between those scales gives the golden world a visual logic that can carry both the trophy and the tournament graphics.

“a golden trophy that is a symbol of the future and inspired by the past.

Gianni Infantino, FIFA President, on the trophy's design — FIFA, 14 November 2024. Physical trophy design: FIFA, crafted with Tiffany & Co.

One tournament, individual club identities

The team sequences bring each club into the trophy imagery through its name. A shared material and framing language holds the variations together, while the engraved club name gives each short sequence its own point of recognition. The Bayern Munich sequence shows how the naming treatment sits within the moving gold surfaces.

The system behind the individual moments

Club colour makes a formation immediately specific; a stable hierarchy keeps it usable as match information. Repeating the relationship between portrait, name and position lets the clubs retain their character within one tournament framework. That consistency matters when many variants have to be prepared and checked within the same production window.

One identity, many physical canvases

A stadium identity needs to be designed for a family of physical canvases. Giant screens, narrow ribbons, halo displays and vertical surfaces place different demands on focal position, text and the rhythm of movement. The team built a technically complex adaptation setup that served the venue configurations dynamically from a small number of video formats, connecting the source design to the requirements of each installation.

The challenge is to preserve the hierarchy as the canvas changes: the trophy needs a clear focal position, text needs space to remain readable, and repeating imagery needs a rhythm that works across a much wider field. A composition that works on one main board cannot simply be assumed to work around a stadium bowl.

The ultrawide treatment gives the expanded canvas its own hierarchy. Concentric typography distributes the identity around the trophy instead of stretching a landscape composition across the screen. The surrounding space becomes useful graphic territory while the object retains a focal position.

From identity to anticipation

The hype sequence connects the tournament’s golden identity with the clubs and supporters who give it meaning. Mixing graphic structure with football footage turns an abstract material world into anticipation for an event. The shared visual language can therefore carry both ceremonial recognition and the energy before a match.

A shared stage across different venues

The 2025 tournament took place entirely in the United States, across soccer-specific grounds and larger multipurpose stadiums. The visual system had to accommodate their individual screen layouts without becoming a separate identity at each venue.

For this tournament and the 2026 World Cup, the team created an Unreal Engine system that placed the media assets directly into 3D models of the corresponding stadiums. Real-time review allowed FIFA to assess and approve the content in its intended screen environment, making the physical venue part of the creative decision.

After the group stage, confirmed knockout fixtures brought a roughly two-day production turnaround. Club-specific media had to be generated, reviewed and delivered just in time. The small family of adaptable video formats and the stadium review system supported the same requirement: keep the tournament recognisable while preparing the right content for the next match and its venue.

Credits

Client

FIFA

2D/3D Motion Design

Matthias Lein

Agency

Velvet Mediendesign