'It’s time for change' - Southgate resigns as England manager

Southgate rubbishes Arsene Wenger’s World Cup plans

England manager Gareth Southgate says Arsene Wenger’s plans for a biennial World Cup make no sense.

FIFA over shifting the showpiece competition from its current quadrennial cycle into a biennial format, a move promoted by Wenger.

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“I’m not quite sure where everything is, “Southgate said ahead of his side’s clash with Hungary. “I saw some initial proposals, they seem to be doing the rounds, and I’m not quite sure exactly what’s on the table now.

“It seems to change every time I speak to [CEO] Mark Bullingham and the [English] FA. There’s been another presentation and another set of proposals, it’s hard to keep up with really.

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“All I would say is everybody needs to be there, in the discussion, club football, international football, I think I’ve said before there can be tweaks to the calendar that would help everybody.

“If there were maybe slightly fewer windows but you get players together for a longer period of time, that might help the clubs and the international teams.

“But if there’s only one per year, I don’t really understand that as a concept from FIFA when international football is such an important part of what you do.

“As I said at the start if you’re a player and you miss that one month or however long a break’s supposed to be, you don’t have an international career at all that year. That doesn’t seem to make sense to me.”

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