Source: Politics<\/p>\n
ROME \u2014 Donald Trump isn’t the only problem<\/a> on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s mind. <\/p>\n Failure to qualify for the FIFA men\u2019s World Cup for the third consecutive time triggered a major political and public outcry in the football-obsessed country that has now morphed into a bitter fight over who controls the sport.<\/p>\n Meloni\u2019s Brothers of Italy party leaped to propose curtailing the power of the country\u2019s football association \u2014 the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (FIGC) \u2014 after its president, the 72-year-old Gabriele Gravina, resigned in April under heavy pressure<\/a> following a World Cup playoff defeat to Bosnia-Herzegovina.<\/p>\n With new elections to run the FIGC slated for June 22, Meloni\u2019s allies are pushing to call off the vote and place the body under special administration \u2014 an emergency procedure used in the past for the sport to overcome major corruption scandals.<\/p>\n In a country where football carries outsized cultural weight, Italy\u2019s World Cup embarrassment has become a proxy battle over governance, reforms, investment and the Meloni administration\u2019s willingness to extend political influence into independent institutions.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first concern should not be new elections; it is not through elections that you create the conditions for a rebound,\u201d Italian Sports Minister Andrea Abodi said in an interview with POLITICO.<\/p>\n Football officials have denounced the government intervention as a power play to block the heavy favorite, Giovanni Malag\u00f2, a former president of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) who is disliked by Meloni\u2019s party.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea of placing it [the FIGC] under administration, to me, only suggests an occupation [by the government]; it offers no kind of perspective for the future,\u201d Gravina told POLITICO from his Rome office, adorned by two twinkling World Cup trophies and other relics from a bygone era of glory. \u201cThe idea of taking over the football world has been circulating for far too long now,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Opposition parties have accused Meloni of centralizing control<\/a>, stifling dissent and putting acolytes in positions of power, a pattern they observe in Italy\u2019s state-owned television<\/a> network, financial markets supervisor<\/a> and judicial system<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the government rejects that it wants to extend its reach to the FIGC. \u201cIt is a pathetic and baseless claim. There is no element that could be seen as an attempt by politics to take over this domain,\u201d Abodi said.<\/p>\n