The morning after Spain lifted the World Cup in North America, the president of its domestic league delivered a verdict on the global game’s governance that was as blunt as it was timed for maximum resonance. In an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, Javier Tebas declared that Gianni Infantino’s “time is over”, accused FIFA of “destroying the football industry”, and dismissed the hydration breaks seen during the tournament as “a lie, just a pause for advertising”. The attack, published on Tuesday, drew a direct line from the spectacle on the pitch to what Tebas frames as a structural crisis threatening the sport’s economic foundations.

At the centre of the La Liga chief’s ire is the proposal, floated by Infantino at the opening ceremony and championed by South American confederation CONMEBOL, to expand the 2030 centenary World Cup to 64 teams. Tebas argued that concentrating resources on a 40-day event that involves a minority of players undermines the domestic competitions that “keep this sport alive” and generate tens of thousands of jobs. “Increasing the number of national teams makes no sense,” he said, a position that echoes concerns voiced by UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin, who was notably absent from the final amid a series of disagreements with FIFA over disciplinary procedures and match operations.

Tebas reserved particular scorn for the handling of the suspension of United States forward Folarin Balogun, whose one-match ban for a red card was lifted by FIFA’s disciplinary committee after an intervention by President Donald Trump. “They were lucky Belgium eliminated the United States,” Tebas said, “otherwise a case could have arisen that might have cost Infantino his post.” Viewed from European football’s administrative circles, the episode crystallises a wider complaint: that FIFA resolves matters “as it pleases, for its own interests, certainly not for football”. The remark about hydration breaks — deployed in air-conditioned stadiums in Dallas, Los Angeles and Atlanta — reinforced the charge that commercial imperatives are overriding sporting logic.

Despite the ferocity of the criticism, Infantino’s position appears secure ahead of the FIFA Congress in Morocco next March, where he will seek a fourth term. More than 200 national federations have reportedly signed a letter of support, and no opposition candidate has emerged. Tebas acknowledged this reality with a mixture of frustration and fatalism. “There is no opposition candidate, no one wants to present themselves to lose. This is the system, and it is a system that is sick from the root,” he said, adding that he had heard many voices privately opposed to Infantino who “say it, but then do nothing”.

The next concrete flashpoint will be the vote in Marrakech on 18 March 2027. Until then, the standoff between the domestic league model, strongest in Europe, and FIFA’s expansionist vision is likely to intensify, with the 2030 tournament’s format still formally under discussion and the calendar dispute unresolved.