New York – FIFA President Gianni Infantino said football has the potential to be “sport n ° 1 here in America” and that achieving this objective is one of the main global priorities of the director.
There are just a few things that sport should consider first, said Infantino, as the exploration of the introduction of promotion and relegation to American football.
Infantino made these daring statements in a conversation by the large-scale fire with the Jordan Schultz of Fox Sports at Fanatics Fest Sunday afternoon in New York, before heading through the Hudson river to attend a match of the Club World Cup at the nearby Metlife Stadium.
In “three to four, maximum five years,” said Infantino, “it will be the top, the top, the top. One of the best leagues in the world is sure. And I can tell you why – because now I’m here. “
It is a quick calendar based on recent data. A survey in 2025 Led by S&P Global This collected 2,501 responses revealed that 14% of the “internet adults” interviewed look at football, the higher seventh behind the traditional sports of “Big Four” – baseball, basketball, football and hockey – as well as the Winter and Summer Olympic Games. Among those who look at, 76% said they looked at male international football (World Cup, the Olympic Games), 50% looking at women’s international football and 55% are already watching MLS.
As for Gross in person, Annual examination of two circles The presence ranks football as the fourth sport most followed at 8%of the 292 million participants in 2024. Although it gives it a close advantage over hockey, itself at 7%, football drags considerably by baseball (35%), basketball (22%) and football (20%). The other 8% include other sports.
Infantino, who lives in Miami, spoke at length about his vision of football in America. In addition to suggesting the nixing of the “Pay to Play” model criticized for a long time for football for young people, which Infantino called “a problem here in America”, he also suggested that the introduction of promotion and relegation could help bring more excitement to sport.
His remarks occurred after Schultz interviewed Infantino about Wrexham’s wild success in recent years, going from the subject of an FX series to three consecutive league promotions.
“This is one of the beauties of promotion and relegation,” said Infantino. “So, in football, unlike any other sport, surprises occur, and the little one can beat the big one, right? And this rarely happens in other sports, 90% of the time, the strongest saves.
“You have these surprises. You have these team fairy tales.
A story of Cinderella like that of Wrexham, as Infantino suggested, is something in American football simply did not happen thanks to the lack of promotion and relegation in the landscape of male American football.
This is something that could soon change, with the owners of the football league Implement the system in their leagues. Their decision questions the tradition of Major League Soccer, which has never implemented a system of relegation running in football leagues around the world.
Nevertheless, infantino’s remarks show the ambition to implement what would be a seismic change in the way football of professional men worked in the United States. The current system was launched in the 1990s, when, as a condition for the allocation of accommodation rights for the male World Cup in 1994, American football has sworn to launch A sustainable first division league: Major League Soccer. Since its first season in 1996, MLS has worked as a unique closed circuit in which all the owners have interests in their collective success in tandem rather than each club which is looking for its own interests. The approach allowed the MLS to succeed where its sumptuous predecessor, the NASL, failed, stability and parity, while accepting that the League could not prosper with wealthy and no at different levels of operational success. Like MLS, Nasl did not implement relegation.
Compromises made in this format are undeniable. Few leagues in the world can correspond to the rigor of the rules and regulations of MLS, which limit the way the teams can spend on their entire list and force the teams to focus their expenses on a handful of leading players, regardless of their age or pedigree. Dedication to competitive balance also prevents clubs from being able to spend their rivals to win an edge on the field, instead of being clever and working in a set of Labyrinthine Boundary rules.
While the popularity of sport has continued to climb over the past decade or more, American and Canadian fans have turned to other leagues beyond their MLS markets and were interested in the more open structure of sport. A 2016 study by Deloitte “More than 1,000 American football fans”, commanded by the owner of the Lower Miami FC division club, noted that 88% of domestic respondents “believe (the introduction) of promotion and relegation would be beneficial for club football in the United States”.
In this spirit, the USL – which has worked among the lower divisions of the United States since 2011 – has introduced a daring objective to provide promotion and relegation to the United States, announcing earlier this year that it hoped to make its debut to a new circuit at a first division level Make an open three -level system From 2027. As currently designed, such a company would not imply MLS, the best league in the country.
In an interview Assisi with Athletics in 2023The MLS commissioner, Don Garber, left the door open for the league one day consider adopting a promotion and relegation model.
“I do not see any reason why, at the right time, if we are able to welcome him with regard to the calendar and the players and the ecosystem of the MLS, why we could not have more teams in the future,” Garber said at the time. “But this is an example of – life is long.
In the end, it will be up to the owners of MLS – who will come to the decisions by the votes held by the Council of Governors, inspired by various committees among its members – to determine if he finally wants to go ahead with the opening of the system. Athletics contacted MLS to comment on the infantino remarks.
Infantino’s remarks are not the first sign that MLS may need to kiss the winds of change – far from it, in fact. However, the latter in an apparently endless series of major summer tournaments has shown that the leagues beyond the elite of Europe can face at the highest level if they are put in place. Although the Sounders of Seattle and Los Angeles were competitive in their club World Cup matches, the two teams enter the last stage match without a single point.
(Photo: John Nacion / Getty Images for fanatics)