La Liga president Javier Tebas has accused FIFA of “destroying the football industry” and said its president, Gianni Infantino, should step down.
Tebas made the remarks after Spain’s victory at the 2026 World Cup and amid reports that the men’s 2030 tournament, to be staged partly in Spain, could be expanded from 48 to 64 teams.
Speaking to Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport on Tuesday, Tebas said increasing the number of national teams “makes no sense”.
“The football industry is not just the World Cup, even if it is the biggest event,” he said. “Everything cannot revolve around the World Cup. It is domestic competitions that sustain the sport.”
He said FIFA was undermining the part of football that creates “tens of thousands of jobs” for the sake of a tournament lasting 40 days and involving only a minority of players.
“We need fewer national teams and better protection for domestic football at every level,” Tebas said. “They do not realise it and they are making decisions irresponsibly.”
Asked whether Infantino should leave office, Tebas replied: “In my opinion, yes. I think his time is up.”
He added that Infantino still had the backing of football’s governing system and national federations, making any challenge unlikely. “There is no opposition candidate, nobody wants to stand and risk losing,” he said.
Tebas said he had recently heard many people in the Americas criticising Infantino and opposing his actions. “I do not know whether silence or complicity is worse, because those who stay silent are fully aware of the damage being done to football,” he said.
He also described the suspension of an unnamed American player as “an extremely serious matter”.
“They were lucky Belgium knocked out the United States, because otherwise a controversy could have erupted and cost Infantino his job,” Tebas said. “Belgium’s win helped bury the issue.”
He said the case was only “the tip of the iceberg” and accused FIFA of acting in its own interests rather than for the good of the game.
Tebas also criticised what he said were unnecessary match stoppages, dismissing cooling breaks as a pretext for advertising.
“If they need a 27-minute break, they do it,” he said. “Hydration breaks are a smokescreen. We have them in La Liga too, but only when it is very hot. Here, the stadiums in Dallas, Los Angeles and Atlanta were air-conditioned — I had to put on a jumper in the stands. It was a pretence, a break for advertising purposes.”
