LONDON (Agencies): Arsene Wenger says Fifa’s expanded Club World Cup can make football “really global” and should not just be looked at from a European perspective.
The 32-team event will begin in 2025 with 12 European clubs, including Manchester City and Chelsea.
World players’ union Fifpro and City boss Pep Guardiola have expressed concern at the plans.
However, Wenger, Fifa’s chief of global football development, says it is “a chance for other clubs to progress”. Having championed the idea of a biennial World Cup, only for it to be dropped amid fierce opposition, the Frenchman wants to find ways of making all the confederations as strong as Europe’s Uefa.
“The positive impact this will have on clubs is going to be huge, because it will increase resources for clubs all over the world to develop and to compete,” said the former Arsenal manager. “In Europe we are lucky, but it’s important that we make football really global and this creates a chance for other clubs to progress. It will give more opportunities to more players all over the world to compete at the highest level.
“I accept that the football calendar is a busy one, but this is a competition that is going to take place every four years and of course the rest period during the competition and afterwards has to be respected.”
The final of the event in the United States in 2025 will take place on 13 July. Under normal circumstances that would be four weeks before the start of the 2025-26 Premier League season.
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, European club competitions were completed after the end of all domestic football, with the quarter-finals onwards staged in this August period.
As a result, the Premier League gave Manchester City and Manchester United the opening week of the 2020-21 season off to allow their players extra rest time.
Wenger believes a solution can be found this time and pointed to the improved treatment of players as evidence their workload is being managed far better.
“The welfare of the players in the last 20 years has increased dramatically when you look at injury prevention, recovery work, nutrition and advances in medical technology,” he added. “Also VAR has helped with the protection of players, as players know they cannot escape from making bad tackles that cause injury.
“We see players receiving world awards, the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, Benzema, all over the age of 35. And it is not unusual to see international careers lasting over 20 years. “Not so long ago, that was not possible.”
Lack of recovery time ‘really, really tough’ for players
Manchester City manager Guardiola says he is concerned by the scheduling of tournaments in the middle of the summer, limiting the time off players have between seasons. “I am not against the new competitions. I am against the lack of time to recover from year to year,” Guardiola said.
“But it is really tough to finish the season and then in three weeks restart again and go to Asia, to be financially stable, or the States. That is really, really tough, for ourselves and especially for the players. For myself, things should change.
“But how do you change when [after] you finish the season, you go to the United States to play another competition? This is the problem.” Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva says the amount of games elite footballers have to play now is “crazy” and increases the risk of injury, though he also says they are well paid to compensate.
His verdict is therefore strikingly different to that of Wenger.
“We were not consulted, but we try to do our jobs, to represent our clubs the best possible way, and the people that pay our salaries and the fans that support us,” said the Portugal international. “At the end we cannot complain because we earn a lot of money, but in my opinion, for the people that love the game and are entertained by the game, if we have this many games for so long, at the end the games will lose the energy and the intensity.”
Fifpro said the new competition format “demonstrates a lack of consideration for the mental and physical health of participating players” and urged world governing body Fifa to hold talks with other football stakeholders to discuss player welfare regulations.
“The extreme mental and physical pressures at the pinnacle of the game is the principal concern of players with multiple club and national team competitions, leading to exhaustion, physical injuries, mental health issues, diminished performance, and risks to career longevity,” Fifpro said.
