Carragher: Wenger once called a meeting with retired players to encourage them to support the World Cup being held every two years.

According to Jamie Carragher, Wenger had asked him to publicly support the plan to change the World Cup to a biennial event.

Carragher said on the Football Ramble podcast that FIFA tried to get him to endorse their plan for a two-year World Cup instead of the current four-year cycle.

Carragher said: "I spoke with Arsène Wenger. He was dealing with FIFA at the time, or was already involved, on the topic of changing the World Cup to a biennial event."

He said, "I'd like you to join another conference call with some retired players, and we'll talk about some future ideas." I thought, "That's awesome, that's great!"

"So we went into a Zoom meeting, which included not only England players, but also Mascherano and others. Players from all over the world were there, and everyone was basically talking about the benefits of the World Cup being held every two years."

“I was just listening and asking questions casually. I don’t like the idea.”

“After the meeting, I didn’t actually say I didn’t like it, nor did I say it shouldn’t have happened. I just talked to these retired players. Then the person in charge of organizing this Zoom message texted me and said, ‘Okay, can you send this out? Can you send this out?’ He meant for me to publicly support the World Cup being held every two years.”

“I said, ‘No, no, no.’ Just because I attended this Zoom meeting doesn’t mean I agree with it, I don’t want it, I think it’s rubbish.”

Carragher added, "There was almost a feeling at the time that, 'If you get into this meeting, you're on our side. We're all retired players, we're a group.'"

"So what I saw from Wenger, and to some extent from Infantino above him, was: 'Bring these former players in, and we'll look fine.' Half of these former players didn't really care."

“From then on, I thought, ‘No, I absolutely cannot accept this.’”