‘It is essential’ to review the world football calendar, says FIFA president

FIFA president Gianni Infantino said on Sunday in Chile that “it is essential” to review the calendar of clubs and national teams at the world level, in addition to defending the holding of the World Cup every two years.

The director of the entity that commands world football considered that the current calendar exhausts players due to the long journeys they have to make to play with their teams and national teams.

“Today the international calendar is more negative for South Americans than for Europeans, for example. All players play, or almost all, or many, in Europe and have to travel to meet their national teams,” Infantino declared in an interview conference at the headquarters of the Chilean Football Federation, in Santiago, alongside the organisation’s president, Pablo Milad.

He added that studies show that a South American player in four years travels 10 times more than a European to play for his national team, which affects his health and is decisive in relation to European players at the end of the season when they have to play in a Cup of the world.

“Our responsibility is to ensure that the main characters who are the players can play in the best conditions and equality in the world, without giving advantages to some and disadvantages to others”, said the FIFA president.

Infantino, who arrived in Chile on Saturday after going to Venezuela, returned to defending his idea of ​​holding the World Cup every two years.

“I think it would have a positive impact, because the more high-level football, the better for everyone in football,” he said.

Already raised and discarded in the 1990s, the idea of ​​a biennial World Cup instead of every four years, as it has been played since its inception in 1930, has resurfaced in recent months and attracted widespread criticism.

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin condemned this proposal in mid-June as “impossible”.

For Conmebol, a World Cup every two years could “denaturalize” the competition, “lowering its quality and undermining its exclusive character and its current demanding standards”.