The ’war’ between FIFA and UEFA over the football calendar sometimes unpleasantly looks like the imperialistic battle between colonial powers just before World War I. Everybody is trying to get ’new lands’, which in football terms means to find a way to get some new competition just to get more money and have more power over the rival organization. And in that perspective, a new battle is on the horizon. After UEFA surprisingly announced last week that one of their recent competitions, The Nations League will expand to South America in 2024, FIFA is reportedly looking to block the deal. World Cup every two years? NO… Intercontinental Nations League? YES!The 211 national federations will take part in a virtual summit hosted by FIFA today, and they are understood to have been blind-sided by the development, which threatens to split international football in two, with UEFA and the South American confederation CONMEBOL pitted against the rest of the world, as per Daily Mail. UEFA and CONMEBOL signed a renewed and extended Memorandum of Understanding this week, which saw them commit to co-operating and organizing football events until June 2028. „From 2024 CONMEBOL will join the Nations League. We do not know yet in what formula, in what form. But we signed a memorandum about cooperation between CONMEBOL and UEFA and from 2024 these teams will play in the Nations League. UEFA is working on a number of projects with CONMEBOL, including a joint Nations League but nothing is finalised and no decisions have yet been made“ UEFA vice-president Zbigniew Boniek revealed last week. ‘There will be AFCON in January, show some respect towards Africa’This development angered FIFA, but also the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF, which governs the game in the north and central America, as they were hoping to broker a compromise. In fact, FIFA sees this collaboration and a new format of the Nations League as some sort of „Super League“ on a national level, something with UEFA strongly opposed within the European football recently. FIFA’s response to this new attack on the football calendar will be to increase their demands for a biennial World Cup, which will be discussed again at Monday’s meeting. Whilst UEFA and CONMEBOL are implacably opposed, the idea championed by Arsene Wenger has considerable support elsewhere and could command the backing of a majority of FIFA’s 211 members.
