Giving Italy second chance at FIFA World Cup ‘is not right’, sports minister says

Italy should not get a FIFA World Cup do-over, according to its own sports minister, Andrea Abodi.

“A second chance for Italy at the World Cup? That’s not appropriate; you have to qualify on the pitch,” Abodi said Thursday, commenting on reports that U.S. special envoy Paolo Zampolli had asked FIFA to replace Iran with Italy at this summer’s football tournament in North America.

Iran’s embassy in Rome chimed in on X, arguing that “football belongs to the people, not to politicians” and slamming the U.S. for attempting “to exclude Iran from the World Cup.” The move “only shows the ‘moral bankruptcy’ of the United States, which fears the presence of eleven young Iranians on the playing field,” the mission added. Iran’s national team, however, has itself excluded striker Sardar Azmoun after he criticized the regime in Tehran.

The country’s participation in the tournament has been questioned amid the ongoing U.S. and Israeli war in the Middle East, but FIFA President Gianni Infantino stated firmly in mid-April that the Iranian team “has to come” to the competition.  

Four-time world champions Italy lost a playoff match on penalties to Bosnia and Herzegovina last month; its most recent appearance at the World Cup was in 2014 in Brazil. The case quickly became political, and Italy’s football federation President Gabriele Gravina was forced to step down.

Despite the shock of missing the world’s biggest football tournament for the third time in a row, Italian officials flatly reject Zampolli’s idea of letting the Azzurri in through the back door.

The president of Italy’s Olympic Committee, Luciano Buonfiglio, said he didn’t think replacing Iran was even possible, and added he would be “offended” if Italy were allowed to participate under such circumstances. “One needs to earn it, to go to the World Cup,” he said.

Italy’s Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti went even further: “Today I’ve read the news that Trump’s envoy asked for it: I find it shameful. I would be ashamed,” he told reporters.