MANCHESTER, England
(Dispatches) - FIFA says it has fan backing for the much-criticized plan to shift to a biennial World Cup after releasing a summary of the results of an opinion survey of supporters.
The proposals, which have been outlined by FIFA’s head of Global Football Development, former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, have been met with widespread opposition from within the game.
FIFA’s congress in May voted by a large majority to conduct a feasibility study into the potential of holding the World Cup every two years instead of every four.
FIFA used Germany sports research company IRIS and polling company YouGov and said the 15,000 respondents “were identified as expressing an interest in football and the FIFA World Cup, from a broader market research survey involving 23,000 people in 23 countries, across the organization’s six confederations”.
It said the majority of fans would like to see a more frequent men’s World Cup and of those respondents, a majority preferred a biennial competition.