The president of the FIGC (Italian Football Federation), Gabriele Gravina, presented his resignation from his position this Thursday (2), after a new fiasco for the country’s team, which was eliminated in the European playoffs and is out of the World Cup for the third consecutive edition.
Gravina, 72, had been in charge of the FIGC since 2018, when Italy was left out of the Russian Cup. The four-time world champion also did not qualify for the tournament in Qatar, in 2022, and for this year’s edition, in North America.
The Azzurri lost their place in the World Cup, which will be jointly organized by the United States, Mexico and Canada, after being defeated on penalties by Bosnia and Herzegovina (4-1, after a 1-1 draw after 120 minutes) last Tuesday (31), in Zenica.
According to a statement from the FIGC, Gravina “informed the board members that he had presented his resignation from the mandate entrusted to him in February 2025 and that he had called an extraordinary assembly for June 22 in Rome.”
The director is also vice-president of UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) and is close to the president of the European confederation, Aleksander Ceferin.
Under his management, Italy was champion of the European Championship in 2021. In the 2024 edition, they fell in the round of 16, their worst campaign in a continental tournament.
Gravina, a former businessman and former president of a small club in the Abruzzo region that played in the second division of the Italian Championship, had been under pressure since Italy’s defeat on Tuesday.
In an attempt to anticipate calls for his resignation, the manager convened a council immediately after the match in Zenica to “take stock and carry out assessments” of his management.
Italian Sports Minister Andrea Abodi called for his departure on Wednesday (1st), pointing to him as the main person responsible for what the Italian press called the “third apocalypse”.
“Italian football needs to be refounded, and this process must go through a renewal in the FIGC board,” demanded Abodi.
The name of Giovanni Malagò, former president of the Italian Olympic Committee and the organizing committee of the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, is the most mentioned to take charge of Italian football.
Azzurri coach Gennaro Gattuso, hired in June 2025, who apologized for the elimination, is also expected to leave his position, according to the Italian press.
For now, the one who has already resigned is former goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who, after Gravina’s resignation, handed over the position of general manager of the national team.
The new FIGC president will have the task of finding a new coach to lead Italy, the fourth since June 2023, and of accelerating the organization of the 2032 Euro Cup, which the country will host together with Turkey.
In an interview published by the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport this Thursday (2), the president of UEFA, Aleksander Ceferin, threatened to withdraw the continental tournament from Italy if there is no progress in modernizing its stadiums, which the director considers to be “among the worst in Europe”.
