Arsene Wenger has admitted he dreams of a World Cup every two years, a more sensible approach to qualifiers and getting rid of meaningless international competitions.

Arsene Wenger presente sa biographie a Strasbourg NEWS : Arsene Wenger presente sa biographie a Strasbourg - 17/10/2020 ELY androcegarra/panoramic
Arsene Wenger presente sa biographie a Strasbourg NEWS : Arsene Wenger presente sa biographie a Strasbourg – 17/10/2020 ELY androcegarra/panoramic

In his role as FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development, Arsene Wenger wants to see a complete overhaul of how internationals are organised, with qualifiers for the World Cup also batched into one qualifying month, rather than having players leave their clubs multiple times in a season.

There is zero point in me trying to work out if this is a good idea or not.

It’s Wenger’s, so it probably is.

This is what he had to say:

“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,” Wenger told broadcasters BeIn Sport in an interview.

“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,” he said.

“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,” he added.

“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,” he said.

“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,” he added.

“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,” he said.