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Italian men\u2019s football has struggled recently, in contrast with other Italian teams.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 2 Apr 2026<\/span>2 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The head of Italy\u2019s football federation (FIGC) has resigned, falling on his sword after the men\u2019s national team failed to qualify for a World Cup for a third consecutive time.<\/p>\n Gabriele Gravina revealed he would step down as the country\u2019s top football official following a meeting held at the FIGC\u2019s headquarters in Rome on Thursday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n His announcement came a day after Sport Minister Andrea Abodi called on him to resign.<\/p>\n Four-time World Cup winners Italy fell at the playoffs again on Tuesday, this time after a penalty shootout against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and will miss this year\u2019s finals in the United States, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n The shock waves of the latest humiliation for one of the world\u2019s most successful football nations forced Gravina, 72, to go back on his initial plans to wait until a FIGC board meeting next week to announce a decision on his future.<\/p>\n The FIGC said in a statement that a vote for a new president would be held on June 22.<\/p>\n Giovanni Malago, the former longtime head of the Italian National Olympic Committee who was president of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics organisation committee, is reportedly one of the names in the hat.<\/p>\n Before then, head coach Gennaro Gattuso is expected to also step down, while general manager Gianluigi Buffon, the former Italy goalkeeper, announced his resignation on Thursday.<\/p>\n Italy\u2019s failure to reach the first-ever 48-team World Cup \u2013 which will feature the likes of Cape Verde and Curacao \u2013 led Abodi to release a statement saying: \u201cIt\u2019s clear that Italian football needs to be rebuilt from the ground up and that starts with changes at the top of the FIGC.\u201d<\/p>\n That came a day after Gravina had hit out at politicians \u201cwho have only pushed for resignations\u201d, while also admitting Italian football \u201cis in a profound crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n Gravina was elected FIGC president in October 2018, becoming the permanent replacement for Carlo Tavecchio, who stepped down following Italy\u2019s first World Cup playoff defeat to Sweden the previous year.<\/p>\n The highlight of his reign was Italy\u2019s thrilling triumph at Euro 2020, when an Azzurri team under Roberto Mancini, which went unbeaten for 37 matches, beat England at Wembley to be crowned kings of the continent for the second time.<\/p>\n But two World Cup qualification failures and a dismal defence of the European title left Gravina with little choice but to resign as Italy\u2019s football woes deepen.<\/p>\n And those do not just relate to diminishing performances by the national team and Serie A clubs \u2013 none of whom have won the Champions League since 2010.<\/p>\n Italy are due to cohost Euro 2032 with Turkiye. But on Thursday, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin hit out at the state of Italy\u2019s stadiums, warning the country could be stripped of hosting rights.<\/p>\n \u201cI just hope that the infrastructure [in Italy] will be ready. If that\u2019s not the case, the tournament will not be held in Italy,\u201d Ceferin said in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport.<\/p>\n Italy\u2019s football malaise contrasts sharply with its success in other sports.<\/p>\n Italy claimed a record 30 medals at the recent Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, including 10 golds, and left the 2024 Summer Games in Paris with 40 medals.<\/p>\n The Mediterranean nation also has top performers in a wide variety of other sports, such as tennis star Jannik Sinner, a four-time Grand Slam winner.<\/p>\n Gravina caused anger on Tuesday by referring to other sports as \u201camateur\u201d and \u201cstate sports\u201d compared to football due to the large number of athletes, particularly Olympians, who are nominally employed by different branches of Italy\u2019s armed forces and police.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Italian men\u2019s football has struggled recently, in contrast with other Italian teams. Published On 2 Apr 20262 Apr 2026 The head of Italy\u2019s football federation (FIGC) has resigned, falling on his sword after the men\u2019s national team failed to qualify for a World Cup for a third consecutive time. Gabriele Gravina revealed he would step […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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