Football – Rummenigge on World Cup plans: Fans satisfied with the old rhythm – sports

MUNICH (dpa) – Former Bayern Munich board member Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is skeptical about reform plans for a biennial world championship and calls for a “rationalization” of the calendar.

“I’m not a fan of the inflationary developments in football,” said the 65-year-old. “I have the impression that the fans are basically satisfied with this rhythm: a European quadrennial, a world quadrennial.” Tuesday evening at Bild im TV. “The solution has to be to design a football calendar better than it is today.”

Rummenigge criticized the development of the past few years with the recent introduction of the League of Nations and the expansion of participation in European and world championships. You have to break the calendar into more blocks, you don’t need more games, but more quality. “You don’t necessarily have to exaggerate things. You have to justify them,” he said. Bayern Munich’s long-time president is a member of the UEFA Executive Committee as a representative of the ECA.

FIFA Director Arsene Wenger recently reported that his technical advisory group will formally propose hosting the World Cup every two years. As a result, the changes should finally come into effect after the 2026 World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico with 48 countries for the first time. Then the confederation championships will be held in 2027, including the European Championship. In the pre-planned 2028, the next World Cup is scheduled to take place again.

Aleksander Ceferin, the president of UEFA, was very critical of this and threatened to boycott the World Cup. Rummenigge said he believed FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who is considered a supporter of the reform plans, might not insist on a two-year cycle in the end. “This is a bargaining chip for a better calendar.”

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