British Olympic Association chief executive Andy Anson has strongly criticised FIFA’s plan to stage the men’s World Cup every two years, saying it will threaten the Olympics and be “terrible” for football.FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been pushing the idea of a biennial World Cup for almost a year but the idea has split football and angered other leading sports organisations, particularly the International Olympic Committee (IOC).Speaking to The Athletic’s Business of Sport podcast, Anson said: “Without a doubt it is a threat — a two-year World Cup would have a very negative effect going up against the Olympic Games.“As an Olympic organisation, we have to try and fight to stop that happening.”Anson, a former commercial director at Manchester United and the man who led England’s unsuccessful bid for the 2018 World Cup, said it was “good to see” a recent survey by global players’ union FIFPro found that 75 per cent of professional footballers want to keep the World Cup at four-yearly intervals.“If I put my football hat on, I think it’s terrible for players,” he said. “They are already doing so much. The Euros is a great tournament, the Champions League, the domestic leagues, we have so many good football tournaments.“I don’t understand why FIFA think that makes anything better so I will fight that not just with an Olympic hat on, I’ll fight that with a football hat on as well.”Infantino, an IOC member since 2020, had been scheduled to attend the IOC’s traditional gathering on the eve of the Winter Olympics’ opening ceremony in Beijing but cancelled his trip two days before the meeting.This meant he was not in the room to hear how badly the idea of biennial World Cups has gone down with the rest of the Olympic movement. Several IOC members spoke out against the plan before IOC president Thomas Bach, hoping to move the debate on to other matters, said it was a shame Infantino had not come to China as he wanted to discuss the idea with him. Bach has already, however, described the idea as athreat to the Olympics.(Photo: Patrick Bolger/Getty Images for One Zero)
