JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabian champion Al-Ittihad and its star striker Karim Benzema avoided Manchester City in the semifinals draw Tuesday for the first FIFA Club World Cup to be hosted by the kingdom.

The Dec. 12-22 tournament for continental champions and the host nation’s league winner will be played in Al-Ittihad’s home city Jeddah – the latest statement of Saudi ambitions in global soccer including aiming to host the men’s World Cup in 2034.

The event will be the last Club World Cup in the current annual format before a 32-team version played every four years starts in June 2025. The inaugural host is the United States.

Al-Ittihad will open the seven-team tournament against Auckland City, the champion of Oceania.

The winner will advance to face African champion Al Ahly of Egypt in the second round for a place in the semifinals against the champion of South America. The Copa Libertadores is currently at the semifinals stage featuring Boca Juniors of Argentina and Brazilian clubs Palmeiras, Fluminense and Internacional.

Man City, as the champion of Europe, also gets direct entry to the semifinals and will play either Club Leon of Mexico or Urawa Red Diamonds of Japan.

The final on Dec. 22 will be played at the 62,000-seat King Abdullah Sports City, home of Al-Ittihad.

Al-Ittihad recruited three former Club World Cup winners in a lavish spending spree by clubs across the Saudi league since Benzema agreed to leave Real Madrid in June.

Benzema won the world club title five times with Madrid, including the last edition in February against a Saudi opponent. Benzema scored in a 5-3 win over Al Hilal that has since signed Neymar.

Benzema’s new club teammates include N’Golo Kante, who won the 2021 title with Chelsea, and Fabinho, who won with Liverpool in 2019.

Europe’s Champions League winner has won the Club World Cup in 15 of the past 16 editions. Only Chelsea lost in 2012 against Corinthians of Brazil.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino and Saudi soccer federation leader Yasser Almisehal, who is now a member of the ruling FIFA Council, attended the draw ceremony.

The tournament presenting sponsor is Visit Saudi, the tourism board that was resisted as a Women’s World Cup sponsor this year by co-hosts Australia and New Zealand.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

FRISCO, Texas — Since training camp started, the Dallas Cowboys have signed cornerback Trevon Diggs, safety Malik Hooker and right tackle Terence Steele to extensions and reworked the contract of right guard Zack Martin, and they would still like to work on deals with quarterback Dak Prescott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb.

Prescott and Lamb are under contract through 2024 with Prescott set to count $59.4 million against the salary cap next year.

“Those types of numbers, especially the big ones, you live with constantly. That’s always on your mind,” owner and general manager Jerry Jones said on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas on Tuesday. “There’s never a time where it goes away because you’ve got to make the entire thing fit. And so, it’s on the mind on a player decision in the middle of the year. It’s just a fundamental. We expect Dak to be with us a long time. And, yeah, we’ll always [be] working around it with several machinations of numbers that would work.”

Jones has continually expressed the desire to sign Prescott to an extension, but getting one completed would actually chew into salary cap room this year. In 2024, Prescott is scheduled to make $29 million in salary and has a $5 million roster bonus.

The Cowboys put the fifth-year option on Lamb for 2024 at a cost of $17.99 million but have had talks this offseason with his agent regarding an extension that would make him among the higher-paid receivers in the NFL.

In the past, some players have used Week 1 of a season as a deadline of sorts in terms of wanting to get a deal done. It’s not clear if either player has said such a thing to the Cowboys, but Jones said the team would be willing to let the talks continue into the season.

“And it may be a better time for them to get to the point where they can make a decision,” Jones said. “We all, I know I do, have times that I get up and I feel like locking something down that may be a loose end. If I get a chance to, well, I’ll do it. That should sound flexible because it is. It’s a moving part. Of course, the real-life situation that we deal with is injury, and we deal with appreciating and depreciating talent levels. It goes up and down. And it happens there right before your eyes. It can happen during a season, so how you start a season off is not how you end up a season with a short-term and long-term look either.”

Neymar claims he and Lionel Messi “lived through hell” during their time together at Paris Saint-Germain.

“I was very happy for the year he had, but at the same time very sad because he lived both sides of the coin,” Neymar told Globo’s Esporte Espetacular of the last of Messi’s two seasons with PSG, as translated by ESPN’s Adriana Garcia.

“He went to heaven with the Argentina team, won everything in recent years, and with Paris, he lived hell, we lived through hell, both he and I.”

Messi and Neymar both left the French capital this summer. The Argentine attacker moved to Inter Miami, where he’s helped the struggling club resurrect its Major League Soccer campaign, win the Leagues Cup, and reach the final of the U.S. Open Cup on Sept. 27. Neymar chased the riches of the Saudi Pro League after PSG approved his €90-million transfer to Al-Hilal.

Neymar’s interview for the Esporte Espetacular aired Sunday but was originally conducted in June, shortly after PSG’s 2022-23 campaign concluded with another Ligue 1 title but disappointing round-of-16 exits in the Champions League and Coupe de France.

The previous season – the first of Messi’s stay with PSG – ended in identical fashion: a Ligue 1 crown and last-16 eliminations from the Champions League and Coupe de France.

The Qatari owners’ target of European glory with a frontline of Messi, Neymar, and Kylian Mbappe never materialized. Meanwhile, Messi’s international assignments were much more fruitful between the summer of his move to PSG and his recent switch to the United States as Argentina won the Copa America, 2022 World Cup, and the lesser-known Finalissima.

Since moving to Inter Miami, Messi revealed he never wanted to join PSG and said there was a “fracture with a significant group” of the club’s supporters during his two years representing Les Parisiens.

Neymar, who partnered with Messi and Luis Suarez during a successful period at Barcelona, felt the level of criticism he and Messi faced from Paris Saint-Germain fans was unwarranted.

“We get upset because we’re not there for nothing, we’re there to do our best, (to) be champions, try to make history,” Neymar said.

“That’s why we started playing together again, we came together there so we could make history. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it.”