Arsene Wenger blasts outdated FIFA

ARSENE WENGER has branded
FIFA's decision to snub
England's 2018 World Cup bid
as one from the "Middle Ages".
The Arsenal boss was an official
supporter of the England 2018
campaign and a video message
from him was shown to FIFA
committee members as part of
our presentation.
But Wenger insists football's
governing body must now drag
their decision-making process
into the 21st century after
England's bid received just TWO
votes and Russia were awarded
the tournament.
The Frenchman said: "I'm very
sad because I supported that
bid as much as I could.
"I am sad for the people who
have a passion in England for
football. I don't believe FIFA
was conscious of how much it
meant to people here.
"I watched how much the
people worked for this bid and
they put some unbelievable
quality work in."
Wenger has called for future
World Cups to be allocated on
a more scientific basis, taking in
the relative merits of the
technical bids.
He added: "It looked to me a
little bit of a Middle Age way to
decide. You would like to have
much more technical criteria
than human criteria.
"You could have 100 criteria for
example with a different weight
and you put that in a computer
and the best comes out.
"It doesn't look right in modern
life that people have to go over
there and lobby and say 'please
believe in us.' I would like to see
it be more technical.
"You have to work in the
modern life to get all suspicion
out. Is the suspicion right or
wrong I don't know, but you
don't want a vote of that
importance to be the subject of
suspicion."
Wenger was mystified at how
England could poll just two
votes from the 22 FIFA
members.
He said: "I personally cannot
understand that. I was a great
supporter of that bid. You have
to take it on board and get on
with it.
"It has not been played here for
a long, long time and this
country created the sport.
"That's why I say you should
have 100 criteria, the technical,
commercial, the fact that the
country never had the
competition before could be
one of them and give them a
different weight and decide.
"That criteria cannot be the only
one that is taken into
consideration before a decision
of that magnitude is made.
"Russia is a good candidate and
congratulations to them but we
all do not know why the
England bid has failed so
much."
On the effect of the media
investigations into FIFA
members, Wenger added: "Did
it help? Certainly not."

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