February 03, (THEWILL) – Members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), have slammed attempts to have the FIFA World Cup every two years, as proposed by their colleague Gianni Infantino, the FIFA President.
Infantino was not present during the 139th IOC Session, where three members criticised plans to have the event every two years rather than four. But for the intervention of IOC President Thomas Bach, the idea would have received even more backlash.
Mustapha Berraf, President of the National Olympic Committees of Africa, led the criticism at Thursday’s IOC meeting in Beijing, alleging that the move would have a “heavy impact” on the continent and football in general.
“The plan would create immeasurable damage and would put sport in danger and in particular football,” said Berraf.
“It would simply push away other sports and relegate them to the back benches which is unacceptable and create a rift between women’s and men’s sport and be a setback to our aim of creating equity and parity for all sports.”
While insisting that footballers were “not robots”, Berraf added that these individuals always needed to recover and spend time with their loved ones rather than be encumbered with more playing time.
“I make the request to put an end to this endeavour which is incompatible with our Olympic values,” Berraf concluded.
As THEWILL reported last month, Infantino even provoked more outrage when he said that proposing a biennial World Cup could assist African migrants avoid “death in the sea” Later, the Swiss official argued that his remark at a speech to the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly had been “misinterpreted and taken out of context.”
Infantino’s biennial proposals have received support from the Confederation of African Football (CAF), although Berraf believes the World Cup preparations will “not help the development of sport in Africa”
Nenad Lalovic, the president of United World Wrestling, and Ryu Seung-min, a member of the International Olympic Committee’s Athletes’ Commission, both spoke out against FIFA’s plans. Lalovic, who is a member of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF), said that the umbrella organisation had complained to FIFA about their position.
“Football should cooperate in solidarity with other sports and International Federations,” added Ryu, an Olympic gold medallist in table tennis. “Sport is for all and we need more solidarity among sports.”
Infantino had cancelled his trip to Beijing two days prior, according to Bach, and the IOC President refused to discuss the subject without the FIFA President present. “We would like to discuss this with the FIFA President but this is not possible because he cancelled his visit to Beijing the day before yesterday,” said Bach.
“We should not discuss this now on a wider scale on this issue in his absence in respect for our colleague.
“If you agree, we will try to make contact with him again and forward these comments which have been made by Mr Berraf, Mr Lalovic and Mr Ryu to him and FIFA.”
CAF is one of the few organisations to support the notion to hold the men’s World Cup every two years rather than every four years. However, if the ideas are implemented, football bodies in Europe and South America (UEFA and CONMEBOL) have threatened to boycott the competition.
At a recent global meeting, Infantino predicted that the biennial World Cup would generate an additional $4.4 billion (£3.3 billion/€3.9 billion) in the first four years, pointing to the financial incentive of wanting even more football.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
