Wenger slams England´s World Cup snub

Arsene Wenger has branded FIFA’s controversial move to make Russia hosts of the 2018 World Cup ahead of England as a decision from the “Middle Ages”.

Wenger was an official supporter of the England 2018 bid and a video message from the Arsenal manager was shown to FIFA committee members as part of Thursday’s bid presentation in Zurich.

But the English bid failed to win over the 22-man FIFA executive committee in Thursday’s ballot and was eliminated in the first round of voting as Russia secured the right to host the tournament.

Despite receiving praise for the strength of their technical bid as well as their bid presentation, England’s wait for a first World Cup since 1966 will now extend to well over half a century.

Wenger believes the system FIFA use to appoint host countries is old-fashioned and must be replaced with a more scientific approach that would take into consideration the relative merits of the technical bids.

“I’m very sad because I supported that bid as much as I could,” he said on Friday.

“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 as well how much the people worked for this bid and they put some unbelievable quality work in.

“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.

“Russia is a good candidate and congratulations to them. But we all do not know why the England bid has failed so much.”

Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp believes FIFA’s committee had already decided who would get the hosting rights before the official votes for Russia and Qatar, who stage the 2022 edition.

“Listen, we all know what’s probably gone on. We can’t probably say, can we really?” said Redknapp.

“It was amazing that suddenly two such wealthy countries have ended up with the World Cup there.

“Don’t tell me that we haven’t got a better product to offer than Russia in terms of football in this country.”

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who had also publicly backed the bid, was stunned England only managed to win two votes.

“It is a big disappointment. What I am surprised at is that they only got two votes,” Ferguson told Key 103 on Friday.

“I thought the criteria for great stadia, good infrastructure in the country, where it is easy to move around, really enthusiastic supporters was really strong for the World Cup.

“You never know how these things are going to work in terms of committees and things like that.

“You always worry about a committee when they get all together and how it is influenced by bigger, stronger personalities. That has always been the case whether it has been football or anything.”

Meanwhile, Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti added: “Russia took the World Cup. Russia is growing in football.

“They didn’t have the possibility to have the World Cup before, so it’s a good solution.

“Obviously, the English are disappointed but this is normal. But I said that, in 2012, there will be the Olympics in London.”