Italian football has entered another period of upheaval after federation president Gabriele Gravina resigned in the wake of the national team’s failure to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup. The decision follows Italy’s penalty defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the playoff, a result that deepened a crisis around one of the game’s most decorated national sides and intensified political and public pressure on the federation’s leadership.
Gravina’s departure is significant not only because of the immediate shock of another failed qualification campaign, but because it exposes how little stability Italian football has managed to build since its last World Cup appearance in 2014. The country won the European Championship in 2020, yet that success now sits uneasily alongside repeated collapses in the competition that carries the greatest symbolic weight for the national game.
The resignation also opens a wider reckoning over the structure, direction, and credibility of Italian football. With Gravina gone, Gianluigi Buffon also stepping aside, and uncertainty growing around coach Gennaro Gattuso, the question is no longer simply who takes responsibility for the latest failure. It is whether Italian football can rebuild a system that has repeatedly fallen short on the world stage.
Gravina steps down under growing pressure
Gravina, who had led the Italian football federation since 2018, resigned after mounting calls for him to leave intensified following the Bosnia defeat. His position had become increasingly fragile not only because of the sporting failure itself, but because government officials and much of the national media had turned sharply against him. Sports Minister Andrea Abodi described the latest qualification failure as a definitive defeat and said the sport needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.
The federation said an extraordinary assembly will be held on June 22 to elect a new president. Gravina had also offered to appear before a parliamentary committee on April 8 to report on the state of health of Italian football, though that hearing has now been cancelled while the process of choosing his successor moves forward.
In his public remarks, Gravina said he was leaving with bitterness but also serenity, explaining that his decision had been made with conviction after careful reflection. He noted that many federal figures had urged him to continue, but he had already chosen to step back. That choice closes a tenure that mixed moments of triumph with repeated and ultimately fatal disappointments.
A tenure defined by one title and deeper failures
Gravina’s period in charge cannot be reduced to a single outcome. During his presidency, Italy won Euro 2020, a success that briefly suggested the national side had recovered its identity and competitive edge. But that achievement has since been overwhelmed by the scale of the World Cup failures. Italy has now missed three straight tournaments, an astonishing run for a country that has won the competition four times.
The last time Italy reached the World Cup was in 2014, and it has won only one match at the finals since lifting the trophy in 2006. Those numbers have turned the current crisis into something more than a bad cycle. They suggest a deeper structural decline in the ability of Italian football to produce a national team capable of surviving qualification and competing consistently at the highest level.
Gravina had first come to office after another World Cup disaster, replacing Carlo Tavecchio in 2018 after Italy failed to qualify for that tournament. The fact that he now leaves for essentially the same reason underlines how little of the underlying problem has truly been resolved.
Buffon exits and Gattuso now faces questions
The fallout did not stop with the federation president. Gianluigi Buffon, the former Italy goalkeeper and a member of the 2006 World Cup winning squad, also announced his resignation as head of the national team delegation. In an Instagram post, Buffon said he had initially offered to step down immediately after the loss to Bosnia but had been asked to take time to reflect. Once Gravina decided to leave, Buffon said he felt free to do what he considered an act of responsibility.
His comments made clear that the main mission had been to bring Italy back to the World Cup and that the project had failed. He said it was only right to leave those coming next the freedom to decide who should fill his role. That choice adds symbolic weight to the crisis, given Buffon’s status as one of the defining figures of Italian football’s last great era.
Attention is now also turning to coach Gennaro Gattuso, whose contract expires in June. Media reports have already linked Antonio Conte and Massimiliano Allegri to the job, suggesting the managerial question may soon become part of a much wider reset that touches every layer of the national setup.
Leadership succession begins amid wider discontent
The race to replace Gravina has already begun, with names such as former Olympic committee chief Giovanni Malagò and former FIGC president Giancarlo Abete entering early discussion. Whoever takes over will inherit more than a simple administrative challenge. The next leader will be expected to restore confidence in a system that has lost authority with supporters, politicians, and much of the sporting public.
Gravina also faced fresh criticism in his final days because of comments he made after the Bosnia defeat, when he drew a distinction between football as a professional sport and other disciplines as amateur. The remarks triggered backlash from Italian athletes on social media, including boxer Irma Testa, who wrote that athletes like her were the real professionals. The federation later said Gravina regretted how his comments had been interpreted, but the episode only added to the sense of disconnection between the leadership and the broader sporting environment.
Italian football now faces a transition that is part succession battle, part identity crisis. The resignations at the top have created an opening for change, but they have also confirmed how serious the decline has become. The next months will determine not only who takes charge of the federation and national team, but whether Italy can begin to rebuild a football structure that has repeatedly failed where its history says it should belong most.