FIFA World Football Development Director Arsène Wenger said “there is no financial intention behind”
FIFA not only wants there to be a World Cup every two years, but also for continental championships to be held with the same frequency, but in alternate years, so that at the end of each season there would be a major national team competition.
“The objective is to continue improving the quality of football by improving the frequency of competitions in parallel with improving the rules of the game”, explains the Director of World Football Development at FIFA, Arsène Wenger, in an interview published this Friday by L’Équipe.
The former French coach, who is now working on the reorganization projects of national team competitions, denies that his initiatives are guided by economic objectives and that they would result in a hellish pace for the players.
“Not at all – he affirms -. There will be no more matches than before and the national teams will request them less frequently. The idea is to improve the quality of the game and of the competitions. There is no financial intention behind, especially when FIFA distributes the money to all the federations in the world. “
What’s more, A mandatory rest period would be set for players of at least 25 days after the finals.
In practice, The qualifying matches for the international championships would be grouped into two periods, in October and March, and each year at the end of the season the final phase of the World Cup or the continental championship would be held, alternatively.
This concentration of international meetings would mean, for example, fewer trips from one continent to another for many players, who would not get so tired by the changes that this implies for them, he argues.
There would be fewer qualifying matches, which in his opinion arouse less interest than 15 or 20 years ago for the public, who want more attractive “easy to understand” competitions.
Wenger insists that what must be done is not to multiply the competitions but “to focus on the big ones, which make sense” because “society asks for more and more important games with great emotion and more frequent”, not that the qualifications last for a year and a half.
About the timing of your proposal, things would remain stable until 2024 and the 2026 World Cup, which has already been agreed that the United States, Mexico and Canada will organize. So the changes would really come in 2028.
“That means that seven years will pass during which mentalities will have continued to evolve along these lines,” he says.
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