Members of Giorgia Meloni’s coalition urged Gabriele Gravina to step down after Italy lost to Bosnia and Herzegovina earlier this week.
Italy’s football federation President Gabriele Gravina stepped down Thursday after the men’s national team failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup for the third consecutive time earlier this week.
The executive gave in to pressure after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition government repeatedly urged his resignation, both in parliament and on social media.
Italy’s football federation issued a statement Thursday afternoon following a leadership meeting where Gravina confirmed his resignation. The former executive “kindly agreed to speak at a hearing on 8 April … before the Chamber of Deputies’ Seventh Committee on Culture, Science and Education to report on the state of Italian football,” according to the announcement.
Gravina was first elected to lead the football federation in 2018, keeping his post in 2021 and then 2025.
Sports Minister Andrea Abodi said Wednesday that it was “obvious” that Italian football needed “to be relaunched,” adding that the process “must begin with a change in leadership at FIGC [the national football federation].”
Italy, which has won the World Cup four times, lost a playoff match on penalties to Bosnia and Herzegovina on Tuesday night.
Its most recent appearance at the World Cup was in 2014, when the team didn’t 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’s biggest stage was before Barack Obama announced he would run for president of the United States.