Football: A Spectacle That Needs Spectators

"Football is a living spectacle. Without all the spectators, football is not the same, but health must be the number one priority, and we have to search for protocols that allow us to return. I have faith, the future is bright, and the new normality will be better than before. We have to find a balance between health, football, and all commercial considerations," stated.

Infantino highlighted the return of the public to the fields as one of the great challenges that football faces at the moment during his intervention in the last day of the virtual forum 'Soccerex Connected', in which he invited to open a debate about the international calendar and about the future of this sport.

"We must work together in the right direction and ask ourselves the right questions. Do all our competitions interest the fans? Are there too many competitions or not? And ask ourselves about women's football, about how many matches a professional footballer can play per season and what he needs to rest," he said.

The president advocated for "balancing competitiveness in the international calendar" and also narrowing the differences that exist with "the objective" that there are "50 countries that have the option to win the World Cup, not just five or six, and that there are 50 clubs that can be the best in the world."

"Our new Club World Cup will improve football. We firmly believe in it," he pointed out.

Among his priorities, Infantino also marked the fight against corruption - "no more corruption in football" -, match-fixing, and abuse, while advocating for modernization by being inclusive and improving.

"We have the platform, and we have to listen to each other," he insisted, stating that FIFA has shown to be at the service of football during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which it has been able to allocate 1.5 billion dollars to associations and confederations, thanks to "its strong financial position" and the fact that "money in FIFA now goes where it should go."