FIFA, UEFA issue contrasting reports on biennial World Cup with FIFA claiming generally positive response | Football News

FIFA and UEFA remain in opposite corners about the feasibility of a biennial World Cup after issuing reports with starkly contrasting conclusions on Friday.

UEFA warned of a “deeply negative outlook” for international football if FIFA’s proposal is given the green light ahead of the world governing body holding its global summit with national associations on Monday.

FIFA’s survey of supporters found a generally positive response for a more frequent World Cup tournament as long as player workload was not increased.

However, more of the negative results came from Europe, where there was a minority (48%) in favour of a biennial event and three major footballing nations – England, Germany and France – provided the strongest disapproval rating. Only 10% of those surveyed in England were in favour.

Supporters from Africa (76% in favour) and Asia (66%) were most positive.

There was also a bias towards age in the FIFA findings, with younger age groups in favour of more World Cup finals and those aged over 55 most opposed.

The FIFA proposals will be talked about by member associations on Monday as part of consultation over the future of the world football calendar.

UEFA’s study was completed by consultancy firm Oliver and Ohlbaum, and the European governing body said the results were “alarming” and “raise severe concerns over the sustainability of the plan for European associations” as well as raising issues for other sports, a concern previously brought up by the International Olympic Committee.

It came on the same day that talks between UEFA and South American governing body CONMEBOL about the latter joining the UEFA Nations League competition were confirmed.

The report claimed only 25% of fans in Europe thought a biennial World Cup was an improvement, while 40% said they would watch less knockout and group matches and 60% thought the World Cup’s prestige would drop.

Their statement read: “In this dark sporting context, the research conducted by Oliver & Ohlbaum projects a deeply negative outlook for European national team football, should the FIFA plan be implemented.

“Adding up the losses from centralised revenues (media rights of men’s European Qualifiers and Nations League; distributions from UEFA EURO) and from individual sources such as ticketing and sponsorships, revenues for European national associations might drop between €2.5 and €3 billion over a cycle of four years, depending on the number of qualifying windows available (two or just one).

“Echoing the clear objections expressed by the European stakeholders on several occasions and the firm and motivated opposition announced by fans’ organisations, UEFA believes that radical changes should be proposed only if they result in clear and unquestionable benefits for the game and its actors.”