Russian Federation and Qatar were both deemed risky bids in FIFA’s 2018 and 2022 World Cup evaluation reports but it had no bearing on the vote of 22 FIFA executives in the scandal-hit bidding contest.
Advertisement
Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan welcomed the postponement, writing on his Facebook page that “we were successful in blocking another Palestinian attempt to ban Israeli football teams from FIFA”. “More youngsters want to play the game, companies want to get involved in sponsorship and benefits to football as a whole are huge”.
“It was a positive discussion but we didn’t make a voting on the preferred option because it will depend also on the final allocation of the slots”.
They will be discussing key football issues including approving several programmes including a change to the worldwide match calendar 2015-2018, FIFA Event Calendar for 2017.
In a recent speech in Colombia, Infantino suggested a 48-team tournament with an opening playoff round of 16 matches.
Infantino said talks on allocating extra places have yet to begin.
“What can I say to him? In fact you will see better and more competitive games”.
FIFA’s annual football awards will be held in Zurich on January 9.
With football’s world governing body saying that it will permit joint bids as long as they are from members of the same organising committee, the US, Canada and Mexico are believed to be front runners for the 2026 tournament. By giving multiple countries the World Cup it would also lessen the financial blow for hosts.
He denied that expansion would dilute the quality of the tournament, adding: “In the last World Cup, England and Italy were eliminated by Costa Rica (and Uruguay in the group stage) – the level and quality of football is increasing all over the world”.
The next FIFA Council meeting is slated for January 9-10.
Infantino urged both sides “to come with an open mind, and a constructive attitude”.
In the past, 10 different development programmes existed with six different sets of regulations, making it hard to track how funds were being utilised. “For the time being we are moving forward with the analysis”, said Infantino. By investing, by innovating, by involving the fans more.
In a posting from Thursday, Erdan called on FIFA and “all supporters of the ban to leave politics out of football!”
“The view is that co-hosting should be allowed because obviously when we organise events like the World Cup the requirements that we put are high”, he told reporters at FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich.
Advertisement
From the play-off, 16 nations would then move on to the World Cup itself.
