FIFA's Gianni Infantino says soccer will be ‘No. 1 sport' in U.S., urges promotion, relegation
NEW YORK — FIFA president Gianni Infantino says soccer has the potential to soon be the 'No. 1 sport here in America,' and that reaching this goal is one of FIFA's top priorities.
There are just a few things the sport should consider first, Infantino said, such as exploring the introduction of promotion and relegation in American soccer.
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Infantino made these bold statements in a wide-ranging fireside chat with Fox Sports' Jordan Schultz at Fanatics Fest on Sunday afternoon in New York City, before heading across the Hudson River to catch a Club World Cup match at nearby MetLife Stadium.
In 'three to four, maximum five years,' Infantino said, 'it will be top, top, top. One of the top leagues in the world, for sure. And I can tell you why — because now I'm here.'
That's a fast timeline based on recent data. A 2025 poll conducted by S&P Global that garnered 2,501 responses found 14 percent of surveyed 'internet adults' watch soccer, the seventh-highest figure behind the traditional 'big four' sports — baseball, basketball, football and hockey — as well as both the Winter and Summer Olympics. Of those who do watch, 76 percent said they watched men's international soccer (World Cup, Olympics), 50 percent watch women's international soccer, and 55 percent already watch MLS.
As for in-person gross, Two Circles' annual review of attendance ranks soccer as the fourth most-attended sport at 8 percent of 292 million attendees in 2024. Though that gives it a narrow edge over hockey, itself at 7 percent, soccer significantly trails the share held by baseball (35 percent), basketball (22 percent) and football (20 percent). The other 8 percent includes other sports.
Infantino, who lives in Miami, spoke at length about his vision for soccer in America. Aside from suggesting the nixing of the long-criticized 'pay to play' model for youth soccer, which Infantino called 'a problem here in America,' he also hinted that introducing promotion and relegation could help bring more excitement to the sport.
His remarks came after Schultz asked Infantino about Wrexham's wild success in recent years, going from the subject of a Netflix series to three straight league promotions.
'This is one of the beauties of promotion and relegation,' Infantino said. 'So, in soccer, unlike any other sport, surprises are happening, and the little one can beat the big one, right? And this rarely, rarely happens in other sports, 90 percent of the time, the stronger one wins. In soccer, it's 70 percent of the time.
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'You have these surprises. You have these fairy tales of teams. … This is something you can bring in this American culture as well, where you don't have the concept of promotion and relegation, and there's something interesting that I think has to be explored.'
A Cinderella story like Wrexham's, as Infantino suggested, is something that in American soccer simply hasn't happened thanks to the absence of promotion and relegation in the men's American soccer landscape.
That's something that could soon change, though, with United Soccer League owners in March voting to implement the system into their leagues. Their decision challenges the tradition of Major League Soccer, which has never implemented a relegation system that's common in soccer leagues across the world.
Nevertheless, Infantino's remarks show ambition to enact what would be a seismic change to how professional men's soccer has operated in the United States. The current system launched in the 1990s, when, as a condition of being awarded the hosting rights for the men's World Cup in 1994, U.S. Soccer vowed to launch a sustainable first-division league: Major League Soccer. Since its debut season in 1996, MLS has operated as a closed single-entity circuit in which all owners have vested interests in their collective success in tandem rather than each club looking out for its own interests. The approach allowed MLS to succeed where its glitzy predecessor, the NASL, failed, stability and parity, while accepting the league couldn't thrive with haves and have-nots at varying levels of operational success. Like MLS, NASL did not implement relegation.
The compromises made in this format are undeniable. Few leagues around the world can match the strictness of MLS' rules and regulations, which limit how teams can spend across their entire roster and force teams to focus their expenditures on only a handful of leading players regardless of their age or pedigree. The devotion to competitive balance also keeps clubs from being able to outspend their rivals to gain an on-field edge, instead having to be crafty and work within a borderline labyrinthine set of roster rules.
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As the sport's popularity has continued to spike over the past decade or more, American and Canadian fans have looked to other leagues beyond their MLS markets and taken interest in the sport's more open structure. A 2016 study by Deloitte of 'over 1,000 U.S. soccer fans,' commissioned by the owner of lower-division club Miami FC, found that 88 percent of domestic respondents 'believe (the) introduction of promotion and relegation would be beneficial for club soccer in the USA.'
In that spirit, the USL — which has operated among the United States' lower divisions since 2011 — introduced an audacious aim to bring promotion and relegation to the U.S., announcing earlier this year it hoped to debut a new circuit at a first-division level to make a three-tier open system as soon as 2027. As currently designed, such a venture would not involve MLS, the nation's top league.
In a sit-down interview with The Athletic in 2023, MLS commissioner Don Garber left the door open for the league to one day consider adopting a promotion and relegation model.
'I don't see any reason why, at the right time, if we're able to accommodate it as it relates to schedule and players and the ecosystem of MLS, why we couldn't have more teams in the future,' Garber said at the time. 'But this is an example of — life is a long time. We do not need to expand. We expand so that we can build our fan base. We build our fan base, which drives revenue, we drive revenue and we can invest that money back into the sport.'
Ultimately, it will be up to MLS' owners — who come to decisions through votes held by the board of governors, taking cues from various committees among its membership — to determine whether it wants to finally move forward with opening the system. The Athletic has reached out to MLS for comment on Infantino's remarks.
Infantino's remarks aren't the first sign that MLS might need to embrace the winds of change — far from it, in fact. However, this latest in a seemingly endless series of major summer tournaments has shown that leagues beyond Europe's elite can contend at the highest levels if set up for success. Though both the Seattle Sounders and Los Angeles have been competitive in their Club World Cup matches, both teams enter the final group stage match without a single point.
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