'I’m not massively pro or negative' - Gareth Southgate open-minded on World Cup taking place every two years

Gareth Southgate is not put off by the prospect of the World Cup taking place every two years, but stressed something would need to be removed from the calendar to facilitate the move.

FIFA’s chief of global development, Arsene Wenger is looking into the prospect of hosting the World Cup every two years - and is consulting stakeholders to gauge opinions.

There has been plenty of pushback on the proposal, with UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin saying it would dilute the tournament.

Southgate is preparing his England side for a World Cup qualifier with Poland on Wednesday, and the Three Lions chief confirmed he had already spoken to Wenger.

The England boss is not opposed to change, and feels the calendar needs adapting, but warned that player welfare is of paramount importance.

“I actually met with Arsene a couple of weeks ago,” Southgate said. “He was at a meeting with a few different coaches so I have a pretty good idea of the proposals. I think the whole calendar needs reviewing. My feedback would be – I don't know – that our generation are going to find a World Cup every two years a strange concept. But I also know that things like The Hundred in cricket have been an incredible success so I’m open-minded about some of those things.

“But the calendar generally needs to be tidied up. We can’t keep adding more things in. I agree generally with the concept of better quality matches. But there’s lots of other things that need consideration and we can’t just add more in at the moment. We keep adding more competitions in and I’m intrigued to see what comes out to allow that space to happen because we can’t keep adding onto the workload of the players.

“None of us in the game are holding our hands out for less money, so we also have to accept that comes with a consequence. There is a balance to all this but across the board, governing bodies have to work for a calendar that works for the leagues and confederations and for FIFA. It has to be coordinated.”

Asked for his opinion on whether he would be in favour of a World Cup every two years, Southgate said: “I’m not certain. I’m not massively pro or negative to the concept, I think it needs a lot more thought. As a traditionalist, it feels you could lose some of the allure of the World Cup because the scarcity of it makes it more important. But I also get it that if you are a player who has an injury for the World Cup, you might only get one opportunity every eight years, and that is really tough. I am not certain on that side of it.”