Will begin work with AIFF very quickly, says Wenger

Arsene Wenger mentioned India’s inhabitants is each a chance and a problem in terms of scouting expertise for soccer. “The number is an advantage, but the organisation’s task gets tougher. 1.4 billion people, I’d say it’s a gold mine, but a gold mine, which, at the moment, we have not analysed or identified well,” he mentioned.

Now chief of world soccer improvement at FIFA, the embellished Premier League-winning former Arsenal supervisor is more likely to go to India subsequent month. The intention of the go to can be to assist All India Football Federation (AIFF) arrange a central academy with assist from FIFA.

“I’m confident because I believe that success is linked to education. We want to give the opportunity to educate young people to watch football in India,” he mentioned, in an interview launched by AIFF on Thursday.

Wenger has met AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey and secretary-general Shaji Prabhakaran on the Women’s World Cup final month and on the males’s World Cup in 2022. The proposed go to is a results of these conferences.

Talent improvement, he mentioned, is a two-step course of. Identification of potential expertise is the primary, growing them via “quality of the educational programme and the coaching” is subsequent.

“We will need to work together with the AIFF to identify the talent first. And after that we have to group the best with the best. Under that, you have the grassroots game for the whole country. …We will start work really soon,” mentioned Wenger, 73.

“I don’t see why India would not be on the world map with the number of players. It’s a sporting country. At the moment, cricket is their number one sport. I have nothing against cricket. I was in England for a long time and I know how important cricket is to England. But there is room for other sports… Football is a fantastic sport where there is no discrimination based on weight or size. If you have good technique, you play,” said Wenger whose ‘Invincibles’ Arsenal team won the 2003-04 Premier League without losing a game.

That was when Wenger was in the “results business.” And whereas the Frenchman mentioned that life was “fantastic” even when it was “very, very demanding”, he has now moved to engaged on long-term tasks.

“I would say that with what I’ve learnt, is how we can guide people. This will be more long-term and a deeper satisfaction. That’s why I’m in the part of my life where I can help people, and the legacy I can leave in football is absolutely fantastic,” he mentioned.

Wenger, who was at Nagoya Grampus Eight in 1995 and 1996, mentioned India ought to undertake Japan’s methodology of constructing grassroots improvement and training a precedence. “I arrived in Japan in 1995. They started the professional league in 1993. But they understood very early that you need to create academies and education for young players, and did that programme very well. Look at them now, the boys as well as the girls. Japan are among the top of the world rankings. They are a good example to follow.”