No FIFA proposal for a biennial World Cup

DOHA • Fifa president Gianni Infantino has stepped sharply back from hotly contested plans for a biennial World Cup, telling world football's leadership that the body had never proposed such an idea.

The Swiss-Italian has been under fire for the past year, particularly in Europe, for proposals to increase the frequency of the global extravaganza from every four years to every two.

But at Fifa's annual congress in Qatar yesterday, he told the assembled heads of world football that the governing body had not been proposing the move which was threatening to split the sport.

"Let me be very clear that Fifa has not proposed a biennial process," Infantino said.

"The last Fifa congress passed to the administration a vote, with 88 per cent voted in favour, to study the feasibility of the World Cup every two years.

"Fifa administration, under the leadership of (former Arsenal manager) Arsene (Wenger), then started a feasibility study... Fifa did not propose it. It concluded that it is feasible, that it would have some repercussions and impacts."

He also said that a phase of consultation and discussion would now take place.

"It is the phase to find the grievance and to find the compromises," Infantino added. "So, looking at the leagues, the clubs and the players... we will try to have a debate and a discussion to find out what is most suitable for everyone.

"Because everyone has to benefit. Positive or negative or neutral, every feedback is what is important in this discussion, and I'm proud that national team football is back on the agenda."

European governing body Uefa's president Aleksander Ceferin, who earlier called for a pan-European boycott of such an event, said this month that a biennial World Cup was simply a "no go for everyone in football".

The idea had been gathering steam outside of Uefa and the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol), with the move projected to create an extra US$4.4 billion (S$6 billion) in revenues for Fifa.

But a report compiled by KPMG and FTI Consulting-Delta Partners showed the plan, and resulting changes to the Club World Cup, could cost the major European leagues and Uefa around €8 billion (S$12 billion) per season in lost TV rights and match day and commercial agreements.

The Champions League stood to lose as much as €5 billion per season in audiovisual deals alone - more than a third of what the leagues make in TV rights today.

A poll last month of 1,000 professional footballers, organised by global players' union FifPro, also showed that 75 per cent of them wanted to keep the quadrennial format.

Given the opposition from the game's power brokers, the biennial World Cup idea is looking less likely by the day but Fifa's finances have never been healthier, even if the proposal does not take off.

Infantino yesterday said the organisation is on target to reap record revenues of US$7 billion on the back of Qatar 2022, exceeding its four-year target of US$6.4 billion, as experts predicted a long-term financial boom for football.

Fifa's finances were so good that it spent more than US$1 billion on pandemic-recovery measures and still increased its cash and asset reserves by 21 per cent to US$5.5 billion.

Simon Chadwick, a sports economy professor at the EM Lyon Business School in France, said that it had always been likely the Covid-19 pandemic would make "the rich in sport get richer and the poor would get poorer".

"Organisations such as Fifa have the resources and organisational resilience to withstand the worst effects of Covid," he added.

"Secondly, the sponsors and broadcasters looked for safe havens during the Covid storm - that is, properties proven to have stability, commercial value and an established presence."

The health of Fifa's accounts will give Infantino a strong platform after the 52-year-old, who took over in 2016, yesterday announced that he will stand for re-election for a third term next year.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS