After a long hesitation, the German Football Association (DFB) has clearly positioned itself on the World Cup issue and has clearly criticized the world association FIFA for the two-year plans.

In the controversial question, to which any other answer than the clear rejection of a change in the cycle would have evoked the next storm of protest against the association, the world's largest sports association is not waiting until its presidium meeting this Friday.

The message was then all the clearer: We are against it.

A new questionable survey by the world association did not change that.

"The DFB fully supports UEFA's position that a decision on such an important matter cannot be made without the consent of the European associations and European football," said a statement published by the association after its executive committee meeting. It is "incomprehensible" that initially "so-called FIFA legends" and not the own Council members were consulted.

In the past few weeks, the world association promoted the idea of ​​holding the World Cup every two years and received a lot of criticism for it.

The DFB now wrote: "Like all other European national associations, leagues and clubs, the DFB is most affected by the reform models that are obviously being discussed in Doha." in Europe, but also worldwide ”.

Collision with contracts

The association warned against the "marginalization" of women's and junior competitions. Even for the already heavily burdened professionals, the idea is not good. The physical and mental strain on national players "would be immense in view of a major annual tournament alternating between world and European championships and a month-long term in October and would lead to a significantly increasing risk of injury," the statement said.

An announcement by FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura, according to which, among other things, there should be more interesting games and more opportunities for teams around the world, countered the DFB with further arguments: "Doubling the importance of major tournaments would decrease". In addition, an immediate radical change in the global calendar would "collide with the long-term contracts of the DFB and UEFA".

"The aforementioned points and many other questions require detailed examination and discussion as quickly as possible," demanded the DFB emphatically from the world association.

The day before, he had sent a press release with the actually clear title: “Majority of fans according to global survey for more frequent staging of the FIFA World Cup”.

Only the numbers published later only corresponded to a very limited extent with this thesis.

45 percent of those surveyed for previous rhythm

In the online survey of 23,000 people from 23 countries carried out by the opinion research institute YouGov, 45 percent said they were in favor of the previous four-year cycle.

55 percent were in favor of a more frequent event.

However, this included all those questioned who would like to have a World Cup every year, every two or every three years.

In all five broken down age groups, there was always the greatest approval for the previous rhythm of the four possible variants.

Among the 18 to 24 year olds, 31 percent were in favor of a World Cup every two years, 37 percent for a World Cup every four years.

For those over 55 years of age, 58 percent were in favor of the previous version.

The approval ratings for the World Cup every four years coincide with previous protests by fan groups around the world against the reform plan affirmed by FIFA Director Arsène Wenger.

“The overwhelming majority of fans are against a World Cup that takes place every two years,” said a letter published by the “Football Supporters Europe” alliance.

More than 50 fan organizations worldwide were among the signatories - also from Germany.

FIFA and its President Gianni Infantino want to have clarity by the end of the year, until then the heated arguments are likely to continue.

According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin wrote an angry letter to Infantino during the week calling for an emergency meeting only with UEFA.

An answer from FIFA headquarters in Zurich is reportedly still pending.