"Increasing the attendance of the World Cup, making it biennial, would create a conflict with other sports of greater international impact, such as tennis, cycling, golf, gymnastics, swimming, athletics, Formula 1 and many others. This reform could therefore damage diversity. and the development of disciplines that are not football ".

The International Olympic Committee, at the end of its executive today in Athens (in which it "took note of the Fifa project"), underlined with this declaration that it does not look favorably on the proposal for the World Cup every two years.

The hypothesis was put forward by the FIFA president Gianni Infantino: "We have analyzed the possibility of reforming the calendar with a World Cup every two years from a football point of view and it is possible. There are many advantages, because we give more possibilities more countries to participate. When it was decided that the World Cup would take place every four years, about a hundred years ago, Fifa had 40 nations. It is time to analyze the question, "he said.

"The prestige of a competition does not depend on its frequency. Otherwise we would organize a World Cup every 40 years. The prestige depends on the quality of the competition", he added.

A decision on this will be made by the end of the year.

(Unioneonline / F)

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