Intensifying its opposition to FIFA's push for biennial World Cups, UEFA complained Wednesday that Gianni Infantino's world body has yet to respond to its request for talks to discuss the concerns of European nations.<\/p>\n
Infantino has been deploying retired players and former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger in a campaign to win support for the overhaul of world football, which UEFA said is a sign of \u201cpromotional campaigns of unilaterally pre-determined concepts\u201d rather than an open consultation process.<\/p>\n
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Doubling the frequency of World Cups would create significant disruption for club competitions, continental tournaments, including the European Championship, and existing global events like the Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cUEFA is disappointed with the methodology adopted, which has so far led to radical reform projects being communicated and openly promoted before having been given, together with other stakeholders, the chance to participate in any consultation meeting," European football's governing body said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Watch Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo and football's biggest superstars in the<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0UEFA Champions League\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/a>with every match streaming ad free, live and on demand only on Stan Sport. Start your seven day free trial<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n More than a week after asking FIFA \u201cto organize a special meeting with them to be able to voice their concerns on the impact of such plans,\u201d UEFA said it \u201cto date not yet received a reply.\u201d A day after that request, FIFA on Sept. 15 invited all 211 member associations to a general online summit on its plans.<\/p>\n UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has already said that Europe could boycott the World Cup if Infantino succeeds in securing approval for his plan from the FIFA Congress of all member associations. Most of those countries never get to play at the World Cup, which will feature 32 men's teams for the last time in 2022 before expanding to 48 nations in 2026.<\/p>\n READ MORE: <\/strong>Sam Kerr concern exposed in Matildas loss<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n READ MORE: <\/strong>Ronaldo set to be highest paid footballer<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThere are real dangers associated with this plan,\u201d UEFA said in a statement after an executive committee meeting, \u201cthe dilution of the value of the No. 1 world football event, whose quadrennial occurrence gives it a mystique that generations of fans have grown up with; the erosion of sporting opportunities for the weaker national teams by replacing regular matches with final tournaments; the risk to sustainability for players, forced to engage in summer high intensity competitions every year instead of longer recuperation breaks in alternate years.\u201d<\/p>\n Major women\u2019s tournaments, such as the World Cup and continental events like the European Championship, are currently held in odd-numbered years. The men\u2019s World Cup and Euros are held in even-numbered years. FIFA\u2019s new vision would mean every year would feature a men\u2019s tournament, including continental events.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are grateful for the attention reserved to the UEFA European Championship, with the proposed double frequency of its final event,\u201d UEFA said, \u201cbut we prefer to address such a sensitive matter with a comprehensive rather than speculative approach.\u201d<\/p>\n UEFA flagged up \u201cthe risk for the future of women\u2019s tournaments, deprived of exclusive slots and overshadowed by the proximity of top men\u2019s events.\u201d<\/p>\n A World Cup would also clash with the Olympics, unlike now, if the new plans are approved.<\/p>\n READ MORE: <\/strong>Cricket announces gender-neutral laws overhaul<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n READ MORE: <\/strong>Craig Overton booed after attempted Mankad in England<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n UEFA highlighted \u201cthe impact on the global sports system and respect that football, as the most followed sport worldwide, must show to consolidated spaces of exposure and exploitation used by other sports.\u201d<\/p>\n FIFA has been stepping up the publication of in-house interviews featuring former players stating the case for a review of the international match calendar and for holding the World Cup every two years. Infantino has not been made available for comment since May.<\/p>\n \u201cThe serious concerns that the FIFA proposal provokes … cannot be dispelled simply with unsubstantiated promotional slogans on the supposed benefits of a thicker calendar for final tournaments,\u201d UEFA said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe respect for a consultation process with the stakeholders \u2014 which should be unbiased \u2014 would suggest abstaining from promotional campaigns of unilaterally pre-determined concepts that nobody has been given the possibility to see in detail and which have wide-ranging, often unexpected, effects.\u201d<\/p>\n For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Intensifying its opposition to FIFA's push for biennial World Cups, UEFA complained Wednesday that Gianni Infantino's world body has yet to respond to its request […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=133034"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133036,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133034\/revisions\/133036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=133034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=133034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=133034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Bosnich](\"https:\/\/vms-network-images-prod.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/2021\/09\/379428\/pickerimage.jpg\")
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