FIFPro chief Sergio Marchi has launched a scathing assault on FIFA president Gianni Infantino, evaluating him to Nero and accusing him of inserting “financial profitability over human sustainability”.
Infantino’s newest brainchild, the Membership World Cup, concluded final night time with Chelsea beating Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 within the ultimate in New Jersey with the pinnacle of world soccer persevering with his allure offensive with Donald Trump by inviting the US president at hand out the trophy.
TAKE IT TO THE WORLD#FIFACWC pic.twitter.com/CmpyQdsyER
— DAZN Soccer (@DAZNFootball) July 13, 2025
The match got here on the finish of a protracted European season and with many gamers in want of a break earlier than they go once more subsequent month in a 2025-26 marketing campaign that ends with the World Cup.
It was additionally performed throughout a northern hemisphere summer season with sweltering temperatures imposing even larger bodily calls for on gamers.
There have been ‘some negatives’, says Infantino
Prior the ultimate, Infantino admitted there had been “some negatives” however nonetheless branded the Membership World Cup the “most profitable membership competitors on the planet”.
Marchi, whose organisation was not invited to a pre-tournament briefing on participant welfare, disagreed, and in contrast Infantino to Roman emperor Nero who was renown for lavish extravagance and his disregard for human life.
He mentioned: “What was introduced as a world celebration of soccer was nothing greater than a fiction created by FIFA, promoted by its president, with out dialogue, sensitivity, and respect for individuals who maintain the sport with their each day efforts.
“A grandiloquent staging inevitably harking back to the ‘bread and circuses’ of Nero’s Rome, leisure for the lots whereas behind the scenes inequality, precariousness, and the shortage of safety for the true protagonists deepen.”
FIFA should be taught the teachings from the Membership World Cup – Marchi
FIFA has already revealed it’s going to use indoor, air-conditioned venues for daytime fixtures at subsequent summer season’s World Cup that may even be staged within the US.
And Marchi is hoping different classes will likely be realized.
He added: “What occurred can’t be repeated beneath any circumstances at subsequent yr’s World Cup.
“We’ve got been warning in regards to the overcrowded schedule, the shortage of bodily and psychological relaxation for gamers, and the shortage of dialogue on the a part of Fifa. This fashion of organising tournaments, with out listening to the federation that represents the world’s skilled footballers’ associations, is unilateral, authoritarian, and primarily based solely on a logic of financial profitability, not human sustainability.
“We can’t proceed to play with the well being of gamers to gasoline a advertising and marketing machine. There isn’t a spectacle potential if the voices of the protagonists are silenced.”