Wenger – Why Fifa elections will not change much

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger does not believe that the new Fifa president will be able to implement many changes.

The elections to choose Sepp Blatter’s successor will take place on Friday afternoon, with 207 delegates from around the world expected to vote in Zurich to choose the next leader of the organisation.

The names in the running are Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, Gianni Infantino, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, Tokyo Sexwale and Jerome Champagne.

Wenger admitted, as reported by the Arsenal official website, that while he backs Infantino, he does not believe any ‘deeper’ changes will be implemented, despite the need for it in order to restore credibility.

Honestly, I feel Uefa has presented a good candidate in Infantino, who I know. I do not know the other candidates, nor do I know any programme of anybody because that has been very vague. Honestly, I don’t believe the next elections at Fifa will change a lot. We need maybe deeper changes, let’s see when somebody is elected if he turns up with a programme that presents deep changes. we have to respect the credibility of our organisation who is in charge of world football. That is quite a big job and personally I, like you, have been shocked by the bad news good we got.

The first thing [that must be done] is to restore and convince everybody that honesty and clarity in the organisation are needed. Once you lose confidence in the honesty and credibility of an organisation, you question every decision. Before, I never questioned any decision from Fifa, I thought it was good. I believe we have to restore credibility.

The decision to elect a new leader for Fifa will take place on Friday afternoon, with voting expected to take place from 12.00pm GMT, although it’s not expected that a decision will be made quickly, meaning a number of different rounds will be required to make a final decision.