FIFA President Gianni Infantino has called for the gap between the biggest football countries and the rest of the world to be narrowed, with FIFA committed to providing the best possible “opportunities, access and resources” to enable more teams to compete on the global stage.

Mr Infantino was speaking following a meeting in the Dominican Republic where he met with representatives of FIFA Member Associations (MAs) from the Caribbean Football Union (CFU). The discussions were held on the sidelines of the CFU U-14 Challenge Series, an annual event supported by investment from the FIFA Forward Programme.

“It’s important to engage, to have a dialogue, to express views and opinions – a lot (has) been happening in the last few weeks and it’s important that you hear, you listen and you’re able to, also, express what your feelings are,” the FIFA President said.

Referring to the discussions, Mr Infantino highlighted the transformation of football development over the past decade, while identifying the need to narrow gaps across the world and continue growing the game.

“I think that, whether it’s in Africa or in Asia or the Caribbean, everyone acknowledges and accepts and respects the transformative work that we have been doing all together in the last ten years. We have transformed FIFA, made it to what it is and, it is important that we always remember, and I stress again today to the CFU members, we are here with one job: To grow football in every corner of the world.

“This is our task – this is our job. We want to grow football in every one of our 211 countries in the world. Some, unfortunately, don’t need and they don’t want that others grow, but we need to narrow this gap between the big, big countries and all the others.

“The big ones, they are doing a great job, and we commend and congratulate them, and they should continue to grow as well, obviously, but we need to give a chance to all the others. We need to find investments for all the others – opportunities for all the others.

The FIFA President stressed that the approach which has driven this progress over the past decade will remain central to FIFA’s work in the years ahead.

“This is about, indeed, finding and giving opportunities, access, and resources to world football. That’s what we have been trying to do in the last ten years and also in the last ten weeks, and what we will be continuing to do in the next years,” he added.

Mr Infantino also reiterated that FIFA’s work will continue to follow its established governance processes.

“Everything we do goes then through the appropriate processes in FIFA, will be decided democratically by the (FIFA) Member Associations, by the (FIFA) Council, by the relevant bodies, always in strict compliance and respect of our rules and regulations.”