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The Chief of FIFPRO, Sergio Marchi, launched a scathing attack against FIFA president Gianni Infantino, compared it to Nero and accused him of placing “economic profitability on human sustainability.”
The latest creation of Infantino, the Club World Cup, concluded last night with Chelsea beating Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 in the final in New Jersey with the head of world football continuing his offensive with Donald Trump by inviting the president of the United States to deliver the trophy.
Take it to the world#Fifacwc pic.twitter.com/cmpyqdsyer
– Dazn Football (@daznfootball) July 13, 2025
The tournament reached the end of a long European season and with many players who need a break before returning next month in a 2025-26 campaign that ends with the World Cup.
It was also played during a summer of the northern hemisphere with suffocating temperatures that impose even greater physical demands on the players.
There were ‘some negatives,’ says Infantino
Before the final, Infantino admitted that there had been “some negatives”, but still described the Club World Cup such as the “most successful club competition in the world.”
Marchi, whose organization was not invited to an informative session prior to the tournament on the well -being of the players, did not agree and compared Infantino with the Roman emperor Nero, who was famous for a luxurious extravagance and his contempt for human life.
He said: “What was presented as a global football celebration was nothing more than a fiction created by FIFA, promoted by its president, without dialogue, sensitivity and respect for those who hold the game with their daily efforts.
“An inevitably grandiloquent staging that remembers the ‘bread and circuses’ of Nero’s Rome, Nero’s entertainment, entertainment for the masses while behind the scene the inequality, precariousness and lack of protection for the true protagonists.”
FIFA must learn the lessons of the Club World Cup – Marchi
FIFA has already revealed that it will use interior places with air conditioning for daytime accessories in the next summer World Cup that will also be organized in the United States.
And Marchi expects other lessons to be learned.
He added: “What happened cannot be repeated under any circumstance in the World Cup next year.
“We have been warning about overcrowded schedule, the lack of physical and mental rest for players, and the lack of dialogue by FIFA. This way of organizing tournaments, without listening to the federation that represents the associations of professional soccer players of the world, is unilateral, authoritarian and based only on a logic of economic profitability, not human sustainability.
“We cannot continue playing with the health of the players to feed a marketing machine. There is no possible show if the voices of the protagonists are silenced.”
