Italy lost to Bosnia and Herzegovina in a tiebreaker in the World Cup European playoff qualifiers on Tuesday.
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Italy's failure to qualify for the World Cup for the third time in a row has had its first impact on the football federation. Italian Football Federation president Gabriele Gravina resigned on Thursday. He decided to step down through a meeting of the federation.
Italy lost to Bosnia and Herzegovina in a tiebreaker in the European play-off qualifiers for the World Cup on Tuesday. As a result, Italy did not qualify for the World Cup to be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Similarly, former Italian captain Gianluigi Buffon, who is in the coaching team, has also resigned.
After this failure of world football's superpower Italy, the 72-year-old Gravina has decided to leave his position. Now, elections will be held on June 22 for a new leadership. The strongest candidate in that is Giovanni Malago. He is also the former president of the Italian Olympic Committee.
After Gravina's resignation, the possibility of Italy's head coach Gennaro Gattuso also leaving his post has increased. Gravina had asked the coach to stay on until this season. But the 2007 World Cup-winning team failed to qualify Italy for the world's biggest tournament. Gravina was elected president in 2018.
He replaced then-president Carlo Tavecchio. Tavecchio resigned after Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2018. Gravina's greatest achievement in Italian football under his leadership was winning Euro 2020. At that time, Italy went 37 games unbeaten under coach Roberto Mancini.
Italy beat England in the final at Wembley. But since then, Italy has failed to qualify for the World Cup twice under Gravina and has underperformed as defending champions at the Euros. Gravina has come under fire recently after accusing other Italian sports of being unprofessional.
Most Olympic athletes in Italy get government jobs. Italy won a record 30 medals at the last Winter Olympics, including 10 gold. Italy also won 40 medals at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. However, Italy's performance in world football has been weak.
