Italy's sports minister calls for federation president to resign | OneFootball

Italy’s Sports Minister, Andrea Abodi, called for the resignation of Gabriele Gravina, president of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), on Wednesday, one day after the national team failed to qualify for the World Cup for the third consecutive time.

“It is clear to everyone that Italian football needs to be rebuilt,” he wrote in a statement released one day after the Italian national team’s traumatic penalty shootout defeat (4-1, after a 1-1 draw over 120 minutes) against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the final of one of the European playoffs.

According to the minister, “this process must involve a renewal at the top of the FIGC,” which has been chaired by Gravina since 2018.

After the end of the match against Bosnia, in Zenica, and anticipating calls for his resignation, Gravina called a meeting of the Federal Council for next week to “take stock of the situation.”

The sports executive also acknowledged that Italian football is going through “a deep crisis, a general crisis that requires broad reflection, involving not only the Federation, but also the world of Italian politics.”

The president of the Italian Federation has criticized the interference of the Italian government on several occasions, something that did not please the Sports Minister.

“Over the years, the government has demonstrated in concrete terms its commitment to the entire Italian sports movement. I consider it objectively inappropriate to try to evade one’s own responsibilities regarding the third consecutive failure to qualify for the World Cup by accusing the institutions of an alleged failure,” Abodi replied.

*By AFP

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This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.