Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has revealed why he would never take a role as a director of football – either at the Emirates Stadium or anywhere else.
The 70-year-old, who is now FIFA’s head of Global Football Development, left day-to-day management in 2018 after more than two decades in charge at the Gunners, and while there has regularly been speculation that he could return to club football since then, he does not believe that such a position would suit him.
Wenger did, however, confess that he may consider a different role.
“I would have considered being on the board at Arsenal as an adviser,” he told The Guardian in response to a question asked by long-time rival Jose Mourinho.
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“I believe that honestly there is a deficit of knowledge in the big clubs of top, top-level competition and games of top-level sport. And I believe we have seen recently that there are many ways to be successful in football.
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“For example, there’s the Bayern [Munich] way, where the whole success and continuity relies on people who know the values of the club, and they transfer that from generation to generation: Franz Beckenbauer, Uli Hoeness, Karl-Heinze Rummenigge.
“Or there are models in England of quick money and quick success. Both can work. I like the fact that a club is first an identity and has knowledge that is transferred from generation to generation. So that’s why I saw things that way.”
