Tour de France organizers concerned about FIFA’s bid to host the World Cup every two years | Other sports | Sports

Cycling, led by the Tour de France, shows concern about FIFA’s project to stage the World Cup every two years rather than the current four-year hiatus.

“We are concerned about the consequences for the cycling world and our stellar event, the Tour de France,” said this Friday in an interview with AFP David Lapartiente, president of the International Cycling Union (UCI), in the same vein. That round leaders.

“We see it every four years, and there’s a little drop in audience when there’s a World Cup,” says the UCI president. “It is an event that, because of its enormous weight, attracts investors and specifically this has consequences in other sports.”

In addition to the calendar problems posed by the World Cup in June and July, the event has a monopoly on media coverage, especially the international media, at the expense of other competitions.

“The Olympics have fewer consequences, they always take place after the Tour de France, and the date of the tour is due to end one week before the Olympics,” explained David LaPartint.

Can the results of FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s project investigation now be translated into numbers? The UCI president answers: “We can see the impact on the years the World Cup takes place, we know that the budgets of advertisers and media cannot be expanded.”

Among the sports most affected

Other cycling events will also be affected; Dauphiné, the Tour of Switzerland, and the national championships, according to the UCI president, but the Tour de France is undoubtedly the only cycling event to be published in about 200 countries, so it will be hit the hardest.

“The Tour de France is at the forefront of other events like Wimbledon,” director Christian Prudhomme told AFP. “Although they are powerful events, we can in no way be afraid of a significant drop in the level of media, as the places and regions that receive us are less exposed around the world.”

“Our fans will remain as loyal as they are today in even years, but it is the space in the media that will be curtailed another year,” the tour director confirms.

What can cycling do in front of the sports giant that is football? The project of FIFA, a sovereign federation, finds opposition internally, especially by the European Football Association, which fears organizing the European Football Cup every four years in an even year, but never coinciding with the World Cup.

David Lappartient raises a “sort of concern” among the heads of international federations: “Tennis, cycling and golf are perhaps the three federations most affected.”

“I do not forget that there are internal discussions in football,” he unwittingly adds.

“But there may be a different discontent that can be expressed,” estimates the UCI president, who intends to write to Gianni Infantino to show his concerns, and who expects a gesture of solidarity from the entire Olympic movement, or in other words, from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). (Dr)