The idea that nearly changed the World Cup forever
The FIFA World Cup is arguably the biggest sporting competition in the world. One factor that benefits the stature of the event is its rarity. Every four years the tournament takes place, and it is a full hot summer's month of exhilarating football. But what we do know from recent history is that FIFA has had their fair share of controversies. With the winter World Cup only a matter of days away in Qatar, it's FIFA’s most scandalous event ever. But did you know that last year, the organisation tried to change the course of the event in its entirety?
Former Arsenal manager and legend, Arsène Wenger, now employed at FIFA as ‘Chief of Global Football Development,’ forwarded the idea of a biennial World Cup into the footballing world. He came out with many points on why change would benefit the beautiful game, including that it would organise the footballing calendar in a more “efficient” way. His plan involved having only one or two international breaks per year for a longer period.
Wenger claimed that due to more World Cups taking place, it would also “give every nation a chance.” He said that the money gained from the tournament would be invested in poorer countries. He thinks that talent from these countries don't get to fulfil their potential.
With Wenger’s plan, having one or two months of only international football served some positives and some negatives. This plan would've potentially brought better squad morale to the players. With the national team together for the whole month, this would’ve led to a team who wouldn’t have to break up after two weeks. This could cause a dent on how the players are performing.
Wenger stated: “Out of 100 football people, 99% want changes because there are too many frictions between club football and national team football.”
The Biennial plans could’ve been beneficial to some fans. There is common knowledge that some supporters hate it when the international break comes rolling in. Especially fans from countries with higher quality (England, France etc...). They know that due to their national team dominating their qualifier group, it leads to a slow week due to them sitting in first by a large margin. A month-long qualifying process would’ve eliminated the random weeks off during the club season. This meant that fans from the higher-quality national teams wouldn’t have to endure those annoying breaks and could focus on supporting their domestic teams throughout the season.
One of the biggest criticisms that Wenger received is that the plan was too much for the player's fitness. The amount of football that is played in this current time is hectic, even without a biennial World Cup. This would’ve caused a dent in the players' morale mentally if the two-year World Cup plan went ahead.
Head Sports Scientist for the Port Vale first team, Michael Green, explained the importance of time off in a professional's season.
He said: “If you look at the rise of mental health problems and all that sort of stuff, if you're not allowing that period of rest for the brain, say if you play for Manchester City and you get to a Champions League final, an FA Cup final, and then you play for a team in the World Cup that gets to the World Cup final, you have then played a ridiculous amount of games for the season to then have two or three weeks off to then go again?
“Your body is physically incapable of taking that much, especially if you want to play at the highest level and maintain your standards, because, yes, you could probably play that many games, but your ability, your standard, your quality would probably reduce due to fatigue, unless you are something completely special, which there are those players out there, but that's not going to be the case for every single player playing at a World Cup.”
The pandemic showed that a lack of a pre-season was bad enough for the players. Many clubs of the English Premier League roster went through a massive crisis of injuries throughout their season. Denmark star, Christian Eriksen, also went through a cardiac arrest on the pitch during the Euros in 2021.
When asked about the reasoning behind the incident, Green said: “One contributing factor is the fact that his heart is going up under so much stress on a weekly basis and then to add more games into that, his heart obviously was not able to cope with it.”
With International football, FIFA doesn’t hold all the cards. UEFA control a great deal of the international scene as well. The UEFA Euro Championships (known as the Euros) is another international competition that takes place every four years. This means that overall, in the footballing calendar, a major international tournament takes place every two years. This plan of FIFA’s meant that they would have to work with UEFA to shift their competitions too as a roadblock would occur if they did not.
Commercial and Marketing Director, Peter Daire, thinks rescheduling with another footballing organisation could be possible.
He said: “It would have been a huge task, but they could. Because this is FIFA. This is world football, money talks. They could have made it happen.”
Some fans who were against the idea believed that FIFA's only motivation behind the idea is higher revenue. Which is a reasonable thought due to their recent antics. The World Cup provides the main source of income for the organisation. UEFA also have the club domestic, Champions League which brings them yearly success financially.
Revenue comparison for FIFA and UEFA. Author- Christina Philippou Principal Lecturer, Accounting and Financial Management, University of Portsmouth. Picture source: The Conversation (Christina Philippou)
This chart shows the yearly income rate for both organisations. We can clearly see a better average yearly rate for UEFA. The only two years where we see a higher average for FIFA is in a World Cup year (2014 and 2018). The yearly dominance for UEFA is due to the Champions League taking place on a yearly basis. If a biennial World Cup did occur, we would obviously see an even playing field from both organisations in terms of yearly income.
Due to the four-year wait, many people believe that if they diluted the waiting time, it would’ve tarnished its reputation. One person who agreed with this fact was PSG superstar, Kylian Mbappe.
He said: “It's a special thing because it's every four years. If you have it every two years, it can start to be normal to play a World Cup. I want to say it's not normal. It's something amazing that you get to play maybe once or twice in your life."
It is well known that any football fan can tell you that the build-up to the upcoming months for the next World Cup is something beyond excitement. Predictions and discussions are all over social media. Who will take home the prestigious trophy? Who will win the golden boot? Which team will over or underperform? A large part of the hype is down to the long wait that every fan must intake.
Mbappe has already achieved a remarkable World Cup career as he burst out onto the scene in 2018 by winning the competition with France. He was only 18-years-old at that time. However, the people who were for the idea used his point against him, but for another reason. Due to the World Cup’s four-year wait time, players may miss out on attending the event. This could be due to injury or bad timing with form.
Another positive impact that a two-year World Cup could’ve caused is the fact that it would’ve given smaller countries more attempts for qualification. If a small team manages to break through the qualifiers and reach the World Cup, it could lead to the breakthrough of a generational talent who is waiting to shine. This is one of the main reasons Arsène Wenger thinks that this was a great idea. One notable example is James Rodriguez for Colombia in the 2014 World Cup. Due to his remarkable performance, he went on to sign with the Galácticos, Real Madrid.
An interesting survey conducted by Fifpro asked 1,000 professional football players if they were for the opposed plans. The results saw a huge majority of 75% of players were against the plans overall. However, when asked, the internationals in Africa, votes saw only 49% of players were against the idea. This could mean that some players possibly believed that this plan would’ve financially benefited their countries. This is exactly what Arsene Wenger had promised. Further investment into smaller countries to let future stars shine.
However, Daire, believes it was a below-par excuse for their decision.
He said: “I think it was a nice cover story. There's enough money in football to be supporting those poorer nations anyway, to be honest. So, making a World Cup every two years wouldn’t have changed that. If global football really wanted to help out poorer nations, they'd be doing so already.”
It’s all fine and well if that, overall, the players weren't fond of the idea, but what about the national teams themselves? CONMEBOL (South American Football Confederation) members announced that they would refuse to take part if an idea like this ever occurred. The confederation includes many of the biggest and most successful national teams in world football, such as, Brazil and Argentina.
CONMEBOL stated: "The project in question turns its back on almost 100 years of world football tradition, ignoring the history of one of the most important sporting events on the planet.”
Another massive hurdle that FIFA needed to jump over is coming to an agreement with UEFA about the rescheduling. But UEFA President, Aleksander Ceferin, was against the plans. He also believed that a biennial World Cup would "cannibalise women's football". He said this because the men's competition would’ve taken place at the same time as the Women’s World Cup, which would overshadow the tournament due to the men's popularity in the game.
Ceferin also mentioned that FIFA didn't take the Olympic Games into account and that two of arguably the biggest sporting events in the world taking place at the exact same time was not the smartest idea.
It would be hard to disagree that this plan backfired for FIFA with the amount of disagreement mentioned. If FIFA wants this plan to be pulled off, they have a lot of work and persuasion to do. However, Arsène Wenger believes that since the idea broke out, fans are starting to understand the motives behind the decision.
He explained: “Between 80% to 90% of people like the idea of reorganising qualification rounds, to shorten them, and to make space for an international competition.
“I am open to all suggestions and all criticisms. They are welcome for me. This is not a personal fight for me. The only thing that I ask is that those who are criticising the project, that they give me something better. But don’t try to denigrate my credibility. I would prefer that people criticise the project and tell me why.”
Once Qatar finishes, who knows if Arsène Wenger’s plan will loom around the corner once again. It is FIFA at the end of the day. And with a scandalous few years for the organisation, a biennial World Cup doesn’t seem too much out of reach in the coming years.