Italy’s repechage to World Cup, Donald Trump’s emissary rekindles hopes

Among those who have not given up hope of seeing Italy at the next World Cup is Paolo Zampolli, U.S. Special Representative for Global Partnerships and Special Envoy to President Donald Trump. He has repeatedly advanced the Azzurri’s candidacy in recent weeks, and now he is back at it.

During an interview granted to Pulp Podcast Zampolli explained, I’m Italian, Forza Azzurri! I suggested this hypothesis to the president and then I also talked about it with Gianni Infantino: in case, for whatever reason, the Iranian national team does not participate, Italy could be considered. After all, we’ve won four World Cups.”

“They explained to me that people go to the stadium to see Messi, certainly not me, but to have Italy, with all its prestige and successes won over time, would be something important. Besides, being Italian myself, I also did it for you.”

According to Paolo Zampolli, there are still margins for hope: “For me this remains a dream and this dream is still alive. At the moment the Iranians assure that they will participate, but I am convinced that there could be surprises because Iran is known to change its position often. I saw that they have put forward ten conditions, which seems to me to be a bit too many. Someone told me that Donald Trump didn’t like this.”

Recently there has been talk of Italy’s possible repechage even considering what is happening in Congo: the country is plagued by the Ebola epidemic and several had speculated that the Leopards would be excluded from the competition for security reasons.

The Congolese Football Federation (FECOFA), however, at the end of a meeting between President Véron Mosengo-Omba and FIFA representatives, confirmed that the team will be present at the tournament, also stressing that almost all of the players summoned, along with most of the technical staff, live and play in Europe, thus reducing the risk of contagion to practically zero.