Former Ivory Coast and Chelsea striker Didier Drogba expressed on Friday that the revamped FIFA Club World Cup offers a “great opportunity” for African teams to become world champions.

Drogba was endorsing FIFA’s plans for the tournament next year, which includes 32 teams playing in the United States.

“There’s already the FIFA World Cup, but the World Cup is every four years and not everybody has the chance to participate, so it could be a great benefit for, let’s say, so-called smaller teams. With the FIFA Club World Cup, it makes things a bit more recurrent, which means there’s more competition every year, there are more games, and there are more opportunities for players to become world champions. Imagine the feeling for someone who plays here in Côte d’Ivoire or anywhere in Africa being a world champion in front of all the big clubs, like Chelsea, Barcelona, [Real] Madrid, etc.”

The total includes four teams from Africa, Asia, and America, six from South America, plus 12 European clubs.

“When you look at the normal previous FIFA Club World Cup, when you’ve seen TP Mazembe, for example, being in the final, at the time it was huge. For a team like that in Africa to win the FIFA Club World Cup or the Clubs World Cup competition, it would be, like I said, a huge achievement.”