International Football
ITALIAN MINISTER KICKS AGAINST ITALIAN SUPER CUP IN SAUDI ARABIA
BY NANCY GILLEN.
Italy’s Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has branded the decision to hold the Italian Super Cup match in Saudi Arabia as “disgusting” due to the country’s ban on women attending football games unaccompanied.
The tie between Serie A winners Juventus and Coppa Italia winners AC Milan will be held at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on January 16.
Due to Saudi Arabian restrictions placed on female football fans, women will not be able to attend the game unaccompanied.
Women can only buy tickets if they are situated in mixed gender family sections, with all other sections reserved for men only.
Salvini, the leader of Italy’s right-wing Lega party, has branded the decision to host the Super Cup match in Saudi Arabia as “disgusting” in a Facebook Live post.
“That the Super Cup is to be played in an Islamic country where women can’t go to the stadium unless they are accompanied by men is sad, it’s disgusting,” he said.
Despite being an AC Milan fan, Salvini announced that he would not watch the game.
“Where are the Italian feminists and Boldrini?” he added, referring to Laura Boldrini, the former President of Italy’s lower chamber and a women’s rights activist.
“I don’t want a similar future for our daughters in Italy.”
Boldrini had in fact commented on the decision on Twitter.
“Women at Super Coppa Italiana go to the stadium only if accompanied by men,” she tweeted.
“Are we joking?
“The lords of the football even sell the rights of the
matches but they shouldn’t be allowed to trade women’s rights.”
Serie A defended the decision, however, claiming the situation in Saudi Arabia is progress compared to a year ago when women could not attend football games at all.
“Until last year, women in Saudi Arabia could not attend any sporting event,” head of Serie A, Gaetano Micciché, said.
“We are working to ensure that in the next games that we play in the country, women can access all the stadium seats.”
The backlash comes at the same time as the news that Iranian women will be allowed to watch a friendly between the Iranian and Russian women’s teams at the Azadi Stadium in Tehran.
Last October, 100 Iranian women were allowed to watch the men’s national team friendly against Bolivia following pressure from FIFA, marking the first time women in Iran were allowed to watch a live football game since 1981.
Five hundred women were then permitted to join a 80,000 strong crowd to watch the second leg of the Asia Champions League final between Persepolis and Japan’s Kashima Antlers in Tehran the following month.
Despite the recent relaxation on the ban on female football fans, attitudes in Iran still remain hard-line with the country’s chief prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri describing the attendance of women at the friendly against Bolivia as “sinful.”
Iranian women have also struggled to attend volleyball games,
with a law in 2012 banning female spectators from the sport.
Representatives from four national players’ unions on Thursday launched a new global organisation in Madrid, which they say will strengthen footballers’ rights and improve dialogue with governing bodies.
Opening a new front in the battle over who speaks for players, the International Footballers’ Association (AIF) was unveiled, with David Aganzo, president of Spain’s Association of Footballers (AFE) and a former head of the global union FIFPRO, appointed to lead the organisation.
Players’ unions from Brazil, Mexico and Switzerland were also represented.
The initiative drew a swift rebuke from FIFPRO, which said in a statement that Aganzo was acting out of self-interest and aligning himself with organisations linked to football governing bodies, as well as groups expelled from FIFPRO over alleged mismanagement.
Aganzo rejected the criticism, saying he “will not seek confrontation with FIFPRO”.
The launch comes amid strained relations between players’ unions and football authorities, particularly over the expanding international match calendar.
Relations between FIFA and FIFPRO deteriorated in 2024 after the union lodged a complaint with the European Commission, arguing that the global governing body was abusing its dominant position by adding competitions without sufficient consultation.
Aganzo denied suggestions that the new initiative was backed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, but said “direct dialogue with FIFA” was essential.
AFE’s Extraordinary General Assembly approved the initiative in February with 99.8% of votes cast in favour of spearheading the creation of the AIF.
The same assembly also backed AFE’s withdrawal from FIFPRO, citing what it described as a “complete lack of transparency, as well as its total lack of dialogue with international bodies.”
“We represent over 30,000 footballers, and we come here with a new model aimed at safeguarding players’ rights and facilitating direct communication with all international bodies,” Aganzo told reporters.
“We are in contact with 15 to 20 unions already who were very aware of this moment and waiting for this announcement to make their move and join our initiative.”
He declined to identify any unions beyond those present.
Asked about a report that a senior envoy to U.S. President Donald Trump had urged FIFA to replace Iran with Italy at the upcoming World Cup, Aganzo urged caution.
“These are more political issues; on April 30th, I’ll be speaking to Gianni (Infantino) at the FIFA Congress, and we will discuss those things,” Aganzo said.
“People who want to go to the World Cup have to earn their place on sporting merit.”
-Reuters
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A new trial over the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona will begin on Tuesday, with seven members of his medical team charged with negligent homicide nearly a year after a previous case collapsed in a mistrial.
An enduring presence in Argentina – from towering murals to tattoos, opens new tab – Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack while he was recuperating from brain surgery to remove a blood clot.
A court in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires, will hear testimony from just under 100 witnesses as it tries Maradona’s medical team over alleged negligence in the death of the 1986 World Cup champion.
His medical team has denied wrongdoing. The defendants are psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychologist Carlos Angel Diaz, physician Nancy Edith Forlini, nurse Ricardo Almiron, head nurse Mariano Ariel Perroni, and physician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna. An eighth defendant, nurse Dahiana Madrid, will be tried in a separate jury trial, with no date yet set.
Two months into the first trial, which started last March, a mistrial was declared when one of three judges, Julieta Makintach, resigned after video surfaced showing her being interviewed by a camera crew in the corridors of the courthouse and in her office as part of a documentary, in breach of judicial rules.
The retrial will require both prosecutors and defense lawyers to reassess their strategies after the first trial aired photographs, videos, audio recordings and forensic evidence. Many witnesses, including Maradona’s children and his former wife, Claudia Villafane, have already testified.
Prosecutors argued in the initial trial that medical professionals broke treatment protocols and that the home where Maradona was recovering from surgery amounted to a “theatre of horror,” where necessary care was not provided.
The defense countered that his death was inevitable given his longstanding health problems. Maradona struggled for decades with cocaine and alcohol addiction.
The negligence charges emerged in 2021 after prosecutors appointed a medical board to investigate Maradona’s death. The panel concluded his medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless” manner.
-Reuters
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Aliou Cisse has been named coach of the Angola national team, the country’s football federation (FAF) announced on Thursday, 24 hours after the Senegalese left his post in Libya.
The 50-year-old coach, who led Senegal to their maiden Africa Cup of Nations title in 2022, ended his short stint with the Libyan national team on Wednesday, after taking charge in March 2025.
“Welcome, Aliou Cisse, head coach of the Angola national team,” the FAF said on Facebook. Angola, which failed to reach this year’s World Cup, will start their 2027 AFCON qualifying campaign in September.
-Reuters
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