Pressure has intensified on the leadership of Italian football after the national team failed to qualify for a third straight World Cup, prompting Sports Minister Andrea Abodi to call for change at the top of the federation.
Italy crashed out of the play-offs on Tuesday after losing a penalty shoot-out to Bosnia and Herzegovina, confirming they will miss this summer’s tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
In a strongly worded statement, Abodi said the president of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), Gabriele Gravina, should step aside.
“It’s clear that Italian football needs to be rebuilt from the ground up and that starts with changes at the top of the FIGC,” Abodi said.
Gravina has insisted he will not resign, although a board meeting next week is expected to decide his future. The row has exposed growing tensions between football authorities and the government led by Giorgia Meloni.
After the defeat, Gravina criticised what he described as a lack of institutional backing for football and dismissed other disciplines as “amateur” or “state sports”, referencing the system where many athletes are employed by the armed forces and police.
The remarks sparked backlash across Italy’s sporting community. The country recently celebrated success at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, where it won 30 medals including 10 golds, and left the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris with 40 medals.
Abodi pushed back at Gravina’s claims, saying it was wrong to “deny responsibility for the third missed World Cup qualification and accuse the institutions of a presumed failure while downplaying the importance and professionalism of other sports”.
Tennis star Jannik Sinner was cited as a leading example of Italy’s strength beyond football. Olympic speed skater Francesca Lollobrigida also responded online, writing sarcastically on Instagram: “I’m an amateur”.
