Very divided, the football world hopes to pick up the pieces Thursday in Doha, Qatar, where Fifa is meeting its Congress after the tremors linked to the Russian exclusion from the 2022 World Cup and the inflammable biennial World Cup project, for the time being. delivery.
Playing appeasement before Friday’s draw for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (November 21-December 18), the international federation evaded its proposal to double the frequency of its premier competition from 2026, which had stirred up revolt among big clubs or supporters.
The agenda of the annual meeting of the 211 member federations promises to be very classic at the Doha Exhibition Center, between speech by President Gianni Infantino and vote on the budget.
The reform of the men’s and women’s international calendar by 2024 remains a pressing issue. But the body based in Zurich did not put the subject to the vote, or even on the menu of the debates, seeming to give up going through force.
«No new developments are planned on this topic.This week, deciphers for AFP a source close to Fifa. “The World Cup every two years is just one of the many aspects that need to be discussed. The men’s and women’s calendar, the number of international windows, the players’ rest periods…»
front of refusal
Something to delight the detractors of a biennial World Cup, the powerful UEFA in the lead. The president of the European confederation Aleksander Ceferin said he was convinced that the project, which directly threatens the lucrative Champions League, is now “excluded».
Similarly, the president of the French Federation (FFF) Noël Le Graët, a rare European leader open to debate, estimated on RFI radio that the project was “notnot really up to date».
Organizing a major competition alternately every summer, World or continental event (Euro, Copa America …), would indeed upset an ecosystem punctuated every four years by the World Cup, since 1930 for men and 1991 for women . And would threaten the landscape of world sport more broadly, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) being concerned to see the round ball encroaching on other disciplines.
For its part, Fifa promised in December more revenue “of solidarityto each of its federations if the reform is successful, securing the support of African and Asian federations fearing a widening of inequalities in the face of extremely wealthy European football.
The refusal front, led by UEFA and the South American Conmebol, nevertheless raises many questions: what impact on the physical and mental health of players, the economy of domestic competitions, the clubs forced to release their internationals, the fans who save money and time off to accompany their selection?
Gather the soccer family
It will be necessary to see what direction the reform of the calendar now takes: some evoke a return of the Confederations Cup, a mini-tournament with eight selections disputed between 1992 and 2019, or an enlargement to the American teams of the League of Nations, created in 2018 by UEFA.
Fifa’s decline in this matter may indicate that Gianni Infantino, whose second term runs until 2023 and who has not yet said whether he will run again, wants to bring together the football family, which has been sorely tested these last months, between the Covid-19 pandemic, the aborted project of a dissident Super League and the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
Faced with the Russian offensive launched in February on Ukrainian soil, the international federation took a resounding decision by excluding the Russian national team from the race for the World Cup-2022. Seized by the Russian Federation (FRU), the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) provisionally validated this decision, pending a decision on the merits of the case.
It remains to be seen whether FIFA could go further by directly suspending the FRU, a drastic measure that would do UEFA’s business, facing an embarrassing Russian bid to host the 2028 and 2032 Euros.
But if the usual point “suspension or expulsion of a member associationis on the agenda on Thursday, it is difficult to say whether FIFA, in search of appeasement, will take such a strong decision which would move away a little more from the apoliticism behind which it has long sheltered.
