• Exit could spell end of Gennaro Gattuso’s tenure

• Ceferin: ‘Infrastructure is among the worst in Europe’

The crisis engulfing Italian football has deepened with the country’s football federation president, Gabriele Gravina, resigning and the Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, warning that it risks losing its co-hosting rights for Euro 2032.

Gravina announced his resignation at an emergency meeting of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) general council two days after Italy failed to reach a World Cup finals for the third successive time, losing on penalties to the outsiders Bosnia and Herzegovina. He had come under heavy scrutiny since their exit in Zenica, the country’s minister for sport, Andrea Abodi, intensifying the pressure by calling for “a renewal of the FIGC leadership”.

• Premier League clubs wanted 28-man squad

• Atlético Madrid among clubs with reservations

Uefa has rejected requests from English clubs to increase the size of Champions League squads to 28 next season after a backlash led by their counterparts in Spain.

Larger squad sizes was one of the matters discussed at a meeting of Uefa’s club competitions committee last month, but the proposal has not been put forward for the next meeting of Uefa’s executive committee, which will take place before the Europa League final in Istanbul on 20 May.

• Trial planned from 2027, potentially in big Asian market

• Uefa rejects call to end league phase ‘country protection’

Uefa hopes to follow in the Premier League’s footsteps and trial a new direct-to-consumer streaming service for Champions League matches in the next television rights cycle.

If implemented successfully the trial could pave the way for games to be streamed more widely via a dedicated platform. Discussions are in their early stages and it is unclear whether the service would be offered free of charge. A major Asian market such as Indonesia or India could be an attractive starting point for UC3, the joint venture set up by Uefa and European Football Clubs (EFC) to manage their competitions’ commercial rights, as it seeks to determine the project’s viability.

• Game was scheduled for 27 March at Lusail Stadium

• Uefa claims alternative venue could not be agreed on

The “Finalissima” football match between Spain and Argentina, scheduled to be held in Qatar later this month, has been cancelled due to the conflict in the Middle East.

The contest between the current European champions, Spain, and Copa América winners Argentina was scheduled for 27 March at the Lusail Stadium near Doha, which hosted the 2022 World Cup final, won by Argentina.

• Union of European Clubs wants to help non-elite teams

• Its plan relates to revenue from Uefa club competitions

Competitive balance across Europe’s leagues would be transformed with the adoption of a new model for distributing revenue from the Champions League and other Uefa club competitions, according to a proposal by the Union of European Clubs (UEC).

Clubs competing in the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League benefit this season from a bumper €3.317bn (£2.87bn) prize pot, culled from annual €4.4bn revenue primarily generated by media rights sales. Only €308m of the latter figure is divided among clubs who did not reach those competitions, in the form of solidarity payments.

• Clubs in favour say squads of 28 would reduce injury risk

• Critics fear move would deepen hoarding of top talent

Elite clubs are lobbying Uefa to expand the size of Champions League squads to 28, arguing it would reduce the risk of injuries. The calls have come at the highest level of the European game and prompted fears that it would deepen the hoarding of top talent.

At a meeting of Uefa’s club competitions committee (CCC) last month, clubs argued that the cap of 25 players should be increased. It is not a view shared by all 16 clubs represented on the CCC, with some strongly against expansion.

• Benfica appeal against ban for Real Madrid second leg

• Brazilian alleged he was racially abused

Gianluca Prestianni will not be available for Benfica’s Champions League playoff at Real Madrid on Wednesday night after Uefa suspended him following allegations that he racially abused Vinícius Júnior during the first leg. The one‑game ban is a provisional mea­sure as an investigation continues.

Benfica have said they will appeal and regret being “deprived” of the winger, but the club admitted they did not expect to be able to prevent the 20-year-old Argentinian from missing the second leg at the Santiago Bernabéu.

• Backing a sign of improved relations between presidents

• Tournament expected not to be held every two years

Uefa is ready to back Fifa’s proposed expansion of the Club World Cup to 48 teams for the next edition in 2029 in a sign of improving relations between their respective presidents, Aleksander Ceferin and Gianni Infantino.

The European football governing body had opposed plans to grow the Club World Cup over concerns an expanded tournament could threaten the status of the Champions League, but Uefa is now willing to back Fifa in return for an undertaking that the competition will not be held every two years.

• Benfica manager criticised strongly by Kick It Out

• Uefa investigating Real Madrid player’s claims

José Mourinho has been accused of gaslighting for his response to Vinícius Júnior’s allegations of racist abuse. The Benfica manager was criticised strongly by the anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out for referencing the Real Madrid forward’s goal celebration when talking about the incident.

Vinícius’s allegation that he was racially abused on Tuesday by Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni during Madrid’s Champions League playoff win in Lisbon prompted Uefa to appoint an ethics and disciplinary inspector to investigate. Benfica said they would collaborate with the investigation but reiterated their support for Prestianni, who they said was “victim” of a “smear campaign”.

• Ukrainian FA president seeks meeting on Thursday

• Fifa president due at Uefa congress in Brussels

Andriy Shevchenko will seek a meeting with Gianni Infantino on Thursday to discuss the Fifa president’s recent comments that favoured Russia’s return to international football competitions.

Infantino sparked condemnation in Ukraine when, speaking in an interview last week, he said the ban on Russia’s participation should be reassessed. Shevchenko, the Ukrainian Association of Football president, is looking to restate Ukraine’s position in private when the pair attend Uefa’s congress in Brussels.

• Madrid were sole surviving proponents of breakaway

• Uefa statement suggests club’s legal case will be closed

The Super League project has finally died out after Uefa announced it had reached “an agreement of principles for the wellbeing of European club football” with Real Madrid and the European Football Clubs group.

In a surprise statement released the day before Uefa stages its annual congress in Brussels, the governing body said all parties had agreed a way forward “respecting the principle of sporting merit with emphasis on long-term club sustainability and the enhancement of fan experience through the use of technology”.

Fifa president will be under major scrutiny when he goes to Brussels to address the Uefa annual congress on Thursday

Assuming Gianni Infantino turns up on time, he is expected to make his customary address to Uefa’s annual congress on Thursday. The couple of hours spent in Brussels Expo Hall 3 will be largely procedural but the Fifa president’s messaging will be worth delegates’ attention. Even by the standards of relations between football’s major governing bodies, the past 12 months have been fractious. The fault lines hardly get narrower and there is certainly no reduction in the number of thorny issues simmering away.

At last year’s edition, in Belgrade, Infantino used the gathering of European football’s great and good to make a caveated case for Russia’s return to competitive action. If that was a rolling of the pitch, his comments on the matter in an interview last week amounted to letting the sprinklers loose. Infantino said the ban on Russian sides should be reassessed, at least for age-group teams, but there is little chance of his views gaining weight around Europe even if he elects to revisit the argument.

Unprecedented times call for previously unthinkable conversations when it comes to the US-shaped problem

Could European countries really decide to boycott the World Cup this summer? It is an astonishing question to be asking in 2026 and an indictment of the bind in which, as Donald Trump sows confusion around a potential annexation of Greenland, the world’s most popular sport finds itself. But the idea is at least seeping into the mainstream and senior figures are asking what, in a worst-case scenario, it would take for football to meet the moment.

Unprecedented times call for previously unthinkable conversations. As the Guardian reported this week, an anniversary party for the Hungarian FA on Monday became the forum for unofficial discussions among national association heads about how a unified approach to the US-shaped problem might take shape.

• Annex attempt could bring about Uefa-led boycott

• Implications for World Cup alarming heads of FAs

European football leaders are increasingly concerned about Donald Trump’s wish to annex Greenland, and they have held initial discussions about how the sport could respond.

The Guardian understands the implications for the World Cup this summer were among the topics raised among about 20 football association heads in Budapest on Monday. Talks about the Greenland crisis were held informally on the sidelines of an event organised to celebrate the Hungarian football federation’s 125th anniversary, in the knowledge that a unified European response may be required should Trump seek to escalate the situation.

• Ceferin, as well as Fifa, intervened with the Israeli FA

• Aida facility was set to be removed by security forces

A football pitch used by refugees in the occupied West Bank has been saved from demolition after an intervention by the president of Uefa, Aleksander Ceferin.

A decision to stop plans to remove the pitch in the Aida refugee camp outside Bethlehem was taken by Israeli security forces on Tuesday after an international campaign for its preservation.

Former Uefa president – caught between moving on and settling scores – talks candidly about his downfall, Infantino and the snakepit of the game’s governance

“There are millions and millions of romantics in football,” Michel Platini says. He has been asked whether, after a decade frozen out of the game, its lustre has vanished for him. “Millions who share the ideas that I have. But in the end, it’s big business.”

It is an industry whose peaks Platini scaled before, in one of football’s biggest falls from grace, it spat him out. He maintains he would have become Fifa president if he had not been banned from football over an alleged unlawful payment made to him in 2011, when he was running Uefa, by Sepp Blatter. The scandal led to a criminal case but both men were acquitted for a second time, definitively so, by a Swiss appeals court last year. Nothing hangs over Platini any more, bar a conviction that he was cheated.

As Netflix and Paramount Skydance clash over WBD, football rights once considered peripheral could become central to the future of UK streaming

Netflix has spent years politely rebuffing Premier League and Uefa entreaties to bid for their TV rights, so it would be ironic if it picked them up by default. That intriguing outcome is a possibility as a result of the $100bn-plus takeover battle for Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) between Netflix and its streaming rival Paramount Skydance which will shape the future not only of Hollywood but global news.

Much-hyped sports rights are a footnote in a deal of such magnitude that it will require signoff from the US government, but the implications for football will be profound, even if Donald Trump is more concerned about who owns (and presents on) CNN than which platform shows Bournemouth v Brighton at Saturday lunchtime next season.

Der US-Medienkonzern Paramount hat überraschend für viel Geld die Fernsehrechte an der Champions League gekauft. Dahinter steht die sehr reiche US-Unternehmerfamilie Ellison.

• Republic of Ireland body alleges two statute violations

• FAI approved a resolution to submit a formal motion

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has approved a resolution to submit a formal motion to Uefa urging it to ban Israel from European club and international competitions.

The governing body’s resolution – proposed by the Dublin club Bohemians – cited alleged violations by the Israel Football Association (IFA) of two provisions of Uefa statutes. They are its alleged failure to implement and enforce an effective anti-racism policy and the organisation of clubs in occupied Palestinian territories without the consent of the Palestinian FA.