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“It will be like a festival for children”
Gianni Infantino has confirmed that the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) will organise the first-ever Under-15 <a href="https://absafricatv.com/germany-at-the-2026-fifa-world-cup/” title=”Germany at the 2026 FIFA World Cup”>World Cup this year, open to all 211 member associations.
Talk of the project had been swirling in recent weeks. Now the FIFA president has publicly committed to making it happen.
In comments carried by the website “Foot Mercato“, Infantino said: “This year we will organise the Under-15 World Cup for the first time, and all 211 FIFA member associations are invited to take part.”
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He frames the tournament first and foremost as a huge youth gathering: “It will be like a festival for children, where more than 4,000 children will play football together.”
This kind of project, the FIFA president believes, should sit at the heart of FIFA’s mission: “This is why we are here, and this is why we work.”
Infantino also seized the chance to defend the economic model he sees as essential to building such events.
He explained: “That is why we need these re power, to reinvest 100% of what we earn into the game,” aspiring to make “football truly global, in every corner of the world”
With turbulence swirling around him in recent weeks, the FIFA president also addressed the criticism indirectly: “It is important to engage, to have dialogue, and to express opinions. A great deal has happened in recent weeks.”
Infantino, who claimed to have received “great support”, insisted he could answer the questions raised by recent media reports “with a clear conscience”.
