Players would be banned from World Cup if they take part in Super League - FIFA president

Players taking part in a breakaway European super league would be banned from the World Cup and other international tournaments.

Infantino, speaking to a small group of reporters at FIFA headquarters on Wednesday, said the governing body would punish players at clubs like Barcelona, Manchester City and Bayern Munich if they left the organised structure to form a privately-owned league. 

This will affect the likes of Argentina's Lionel Messi, Brazilian Neymar, France's Kylian Mbappe and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo.

Either you are in or you are out, Infantino said, listing the World Cup, European Championship and national leagues as competitions that players from breakaway teams could be excluded from. This includes everything.

Talk of a long-threatened super league was revived on Friday when German magazine Der Spiegel published confidential documents and emails from clubs and football bodies in its "Football Leaks" series.

But any breakaway from football's historic hierarchy -- FIFA, the six continental bodies and 211 national federations -- would allow officials to ban players from major competitions, including the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

This is the history of the last 20 years, said Infantino, who has clashed this year with European officials and club leaders over FIFA's proposed Club World Cup project, which is funded by Japanese investor SoftBank.

Infantino said his plan -- potentially featuring at least 12 European clubs in a 24-team lineup, and worth a promised $3 billion every four years -- was a good alternative to a private closed league.

The Club World Cup is the answer to any attempt to think even about any sort of breakaway leagues, he said.