London: A revamped Fifa World Club Championship will start in December 2005 and be held annually although the venue for the first competition is yet to be finalised, Sepp Blatter said on Sunday.

At an executive committee meeting, world soccer’s governing body also agreed to sign WADA’s anti-doping declaration in Paris on May 21 and temporarily lift the international suspension imposed on Guatemala.

Despite some opposition to an enlarged club world championship from the South American confederation (Conmebol), Blatter announced that Fifa’s executive committee had unanimously approved its inauguration during a London meeting on Sunday.

“I am a very happy man today,” said the Fifa president. “As the new competition will go ahead in a spirit of solidarity with the champions of all six Fifa confederations involved.”

The championship, held once in January 2000 in Brazil with eight teams involved, was not staged in either 2001 or 2003 because of financial and then logistical difficulties.

The first round will consist of knockout matches between the champions of Africa, Asia, the North American and Caribbean federations (Concacaf) and Oceania. The two winners of those matches will play the South American and European champions in a knockout semi-final.

The losers of the first-round matches will play off for fifth and sixth places, while the semi-final losers will play off for the third and fourth places which means that every team will play two matches during the eight-day competition.

The tournament is likely to put an end to the Intercontinental Club Cup played between the European and South American champions almost every year since 1960.

Blatter said discussions would be held among organisers to see what the future of the competition might be. Most of the decisions taken by the executive committee were expected.

The committee approved the latest stage of the negotiations with WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, and Blatter reiterated that the Fifa would sign up to WADA’s code at the Fifa Congress in Paris on May 21.

He also said that the concept of individual case management in doping cases, rather than an automatically imposed blanket ban, would be part of the agreement with WADA.

WADA would be able to review any decisions taken by FIFA and take them to the Court of Arbitration in Sport if it were unhappy with the way FIFA had dealt with a case. “If individual case management works properly, according to the rules and regulations not only of FIFA and national laws, then I do not see any problems that CAS might want to change.”

Blatter also said that FIFA would not take any action against clubs that did not release their players for the FIFA Centenary match, due to played between Brazil and France in Paris on May 20, two days before the English Cup final. (Reuters)