By Andrew Warshaw
July 1 – Clearly aware that his president Michel Platini voted for Qatar to stage the 2022 World Cup on condition it was held in winter, UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino has urged Spanish football officials to stop challenging the decision to switch the tournament from its traditional summer slot to November-December.
Earlier this week, the Spanish league announced it was appealing against FIFA’s ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, fearing losses of about $70 million if forced to stop playing in the middle of the regular season.
But Infantino told reporters: “It’s a bit sad that people don’t accept decisions taken by a vast majority. You cannot take all decisions unanimously because otherwise you would not take any decisions, anywhere. You need to be a bit flexible.”
Spanish league boss Javier Tebas believes the Premier League, Bundesliga and Serie A all support the move but Infantino challenged that claim.
He said the “the vast majority of leagues,” as well as the European Club Association comprising over 200 clubs had accepted the unprecedented break with tradition. “The European Club Association including the Spanish clubs, members of La Liga, are happy with it so I don’t know if maybe the chairman wants to get publicity or whatever else.”
Infantinto appeared to conveniently ignore the fact that both the ECA and European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL) fought unsuccessfully to have 2022 staged in May instead of winter, a campaign that was only mitigated when FIFA agreed to pay clubs $209 million for releasing players for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
“We need to take a little bit of heat out of this whole discussion,” Infantino said. “We need to be a bit more realistic, and reasonable, and pragmatic on certain things. We don’t need to take ourselves too seriously.
“The World Cup is the best national team competition in the world. It has to be played if at all possible in the best conditions. If this means that for one year in 150 years of history of football, we change the calendar … it will not be the end of the world.”
With FIFA deciding in under three weeks when to hold elections to replace Sepp Blatter as president, Infantino would not be drawn on whether Platini will be putting his name forward this time.
“The roadmap has been set. There is a FIFA executive meeting on July 20 when the date of the congress will be fixed and then we will know more. The eight UEFA members [of the FIFA exco] will discuss this matter ahead of the meeting and the sooner there is clarity about what will happen the better for FIFA and the better for football.”
He played down speculation that Platini is in negotiations with Kuwaiti powerbroker Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah over how to proceed.
“There are no deals. It’s not a question of making deals. Of course there are discussions but the focus has to be on saving football or FIFA or whatever. It’s important that football organisations are positive and speak to each other; it’s more important than about one person.”
Infantino also took the opportunity to hit back at suggestions that Uefa were partly responsible for blocking one of the key reforms aimed at cleaning up Fifa.
Domenico Scala, FIFA’s audit and compliance chief who is orchestrating the presidential election process, has called for an independent committee be created to carry out integrity checks on FIFA executive committee members before they take office in future.
The confederations, who elect FIFA executive committee members, have been accused of blocking such checks in the past but Infantino disagreed.
“UEFA and the European associations have always been in favour of reforms and have always been in favour of integrity checks being made in the confederations,” he said.
“Our members have to comply with our disciplinary and ethics rules at any time, not only when they are candidates. In addition to this, you have the FIFA ethics regulations which means FIFA can, at any time, make all the checks that they want to any person they want. I don’t think this is a real issue, it’s more a communication issue. The real instruments are there, they just have to be applied.”
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