After managing Arsenal for almost an eternity, Arsene Wenger is now FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development. In his current role, Wenger wants to revamp the FIFA World Cup. He wants to hold the tournament every two years, and the qualifiers would also be grouped together so that the players don’t have to leave their clubs in the middle of the season.
Wenger also wants the domestic leagues to be reduced to 18 teams in order to lower the pressure off the players and give them a four weeks holiday.
Wenger told broadcasters BeIn Sport in an interview: “If you look at the teams in the World Cups usually the average age is 27/28. That’s why, because the World Cup, is every four years there are very few chances to win it again because when they go back to the next World Cup they are 32/33.”
“That’s why maybe we should organise the World Cup every two years.”
“Kick all the rest [of the competitions like UEFA’s Nations League] out. Organise only competitions of meaning and kick all the parallel competitions out of the game. People must understand what is at stake and only have games with meaning.”
“I would say that’s one of the solutions we will discuss is to compact the qualifiers but instead of going away in October, November, September, March, June, we regroup the qualifiers all in one month or two quadruples in October and in February but at least the players can dedicate that time to the club from March until June, and we would gain four dates.”
“The ideal solution would be to regroup the qualifiers in one month, let’s say in October, you qualify and the rest of the season you play for your club and then at the end of the season you play the national team Championships but that will be a complete evolution, not revolution.”
“It’s my dream… I just think I have the advantage of having worked in Japan. We played from March until November and it was perfect.”
“It would make things more simple. And let’s not forget that this summer break comes from the way where people were not professional, it’s over 100 years ago.”
“It was a good opportunity with the World Cup in November but it’s not the case, so that will not happen. But you need four weeks holiday and after that maybe you need to go down to 18 clubs (in domestic leagues), everywhere.”
“I believe it’s needed, with the physical resources that the players need today, it’s important that you have four weeks holiday.”
