FIFA may be open to ‘cross-border’ leagues: Infantino

DOHA (Reuters): FIFA could drop its long-standing opposition to cross-border leagues, as it looks to help countries who are struggling to compete with the giants of the game, President Gianni Infantino said on Friday.

FIFA has always opposed attempts to create multinational leagues, saying that the basis of the game was the national competition.

Infantino’s predecessor Sepp Blatter was strongly opposed to such plans and European governing body UEFA has also blocked such initiatives and looked to its own competitions as a way of providing extra competition and revenue for clubs.

Yet faced with the commercial power of the big leagues, such as England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga, Infantino says that the idea of new structures should be considered.

“We need to be open to discussions. The Belgians and the Dutch have been discussing creating a Benelux league and these discussions have been going on for 20 years and we are always saying no, because we are based on national leagues,” he told reporters.

“But maybe it helps? Maybe it is the only way out, maybe in Europe they have to think about this, maybe in Africa. I was proposing something like this for Africa. I think we have the duty to study these things then we will see where it goes.”

In the early 2000s a plan was drawn up for an ‘Atlantic League’ featuring clubs from the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and Scotland, with some Scandinavian countries but was rejected by UEFA.

There have also been suggestions of a Czech-Slovak league, a Balkan league and a ‘Habsburg League’ in Central and Eastern Europe.