Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who is captain of the embattled Italian men’s football team, has denied reports that players had asked the country’s federation for a bonus if they had qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Italy, the second-most succesfull team in the history of the tournament, failed to qualify for the World Cup for the third time in a row, something that has been seen as a disaster in the country and has led to calls for an overhaul in the way the sport is run.
“I was hurt more by the comments [from the media], by the words that were said,” the Manchester City goalkeeper told Sky Italia.
“As captain, I never went to ask the Italian national team for a single euro. What the national team does, as always, in every competition, is give a gift to the players who qualify for a tournament. That was all there was to it, but nobody asked the federation for anything; our reward was getting to go to the World Cup.”
Donnarumma said that the Italian players are now shifting their focus on the tournaments that are coming up next before the 2030 FIFA WOrld Cup. “We have to start afresh, move on,” Donnarumma, 27, said. “We have to bounce back; there are four years until the next World Cup, and in the meantime there are major competitions like the European Championship and the Nations League. Before thinking about the World Cup, we need to focus on these big tournaments in between and we need to start again strongly straight away.”
Italy last played in a World Cup in 2014. While their failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup was itself met with shock, missing the bus for 2022 and 2026 has now led to serious reflections on a general decline in quality in football even among the much vaunted clubs to come out of the country. The last time an Italian team won the UEFA Champions League was Inter Milan in 2010. Interestingly, though, Italy had won the 2021 Euros during this run.
