{"id":507109,"date":"2026-04-01T13:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/507109\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T13:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:04:09","slug":"italys-world-cup-fiasco-sparks-political-fury-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/507109\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy\u2019s World Cup fiasco sparks political fury \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Galeazzo Bignami, the leader in the chamber of deputies of Meloni\u2019s Brothers of Italy party, wrote on X<\/a> that Gravina \u201cmust simply resign,\u201d adding that, \u201cItalian football needs to be overhauled, and his resignation is essential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four-time world champions Italy lost a playoff match on penalties to Bosnia and Herzegovina on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Its most recent appearance at the World Cup was in 2014, when the team didn\u2019t make it out of the group phase; then it failed to qualify for Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022. The last time the Azzurri actually won a knockout match on football\u2019s biggest stage was before the first iPhone was released<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brothers of Italy MP Salvatore Caiata added during Wednesday\u2019s parliamentary session<\/a> that Gravina \u201cstole a dream from our young people,\u201d by allowing a crisis in Italy\u2019s favorite pastime to unfold over the past three years.<\/p>\n

But not all lawmakers were in tune with the resignation demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can ask for Gravina\u2019s head, but don\u2019t dodge the responsibilities you have,\u201d Green-Left Alliance MP Marco Grimaldi hit back, implying the government\u2019s lack of action on sports initiatives is one of the main contributing factors to Italian football\u2019s current dire state.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Party\u2019s Mauro Berruto agreed, claiming the government should focus on investigating \u201cthe reasons that brought about the abyss in Italian football.\u201d<\/p>\n

The item was the first thing on the parliamentary agenda Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Galeazzo Bignami, the leader in the chamber of deputies of Meloni\u2019s Brothers of Italy party, wrote on X…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[459,59,1347,153004,479,217,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-507109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-crisis","tag-gb","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-italian-politics","tag-italy","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}