The Turkish Football Federation (TFF) is closely monitoring the recent news on international sports media about the FIFA proposal which foresees the staging of the FIFA World Cup every two years and a complete revision of the international match calendar.

Firstly, it is clear that such an important plan which would dramatically change the world football cannot be implemented without the consent of the European associations. 

In addition to this, changing the World Cup cycle to a biennial format and having a single and longer release period for national team during the season, will make a serious impact on associations, leagues and clubs globally. Above all, this one-month release period planned in October, will cause a physical and mental exhaustion as well as increasing the risk of injury. This plan would also put the long-term centralised marketing contracts signed between UEFA and European associations into risk as the member associations established their financial stabilities thanks to those agreements.   

Reiterating that the importance and excitement of major tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship are originated from their rarity, we believe in the need that FIFA’s reform proposals must be executed after discussions with European football’s stakeholders.

Moving on from this fact, we would like to formally announce to the public that TFF fully supports UEFA’s position to maintain World Cup’s current four-year cycle and the continuation of the existing international match calendar.

Turkish Football Federation