FIFA Chief of Global Development Arsène Wenger led a dedicated workshop with a number of European national team coaches where they exchanged views on a wide range of football topics such as optimal breaks before a FIFA World Cup™ tournament and the challenges faced by lower-ranked teams.

The FIFA President Gianni Infantino and FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström also participated at the meeting at the Home of FIFA in Zurich, Switzerland, ahead of the European Preliminary FIFA World Cup 26™ Draw.

"The input of the national team coaches is very important for FIFA," Mr Wenger said. "This session serves as a soundboard. We actively listen to the coaches, to understand what issues are on their minds and what their view for the future of our sport is.

"This is a two-way process of sharing with them the key insights of the work we are doing at FIFA every day, while at the same time providing an opportunity to hear from them on how they see the future of football shaping up, their ideas for the future."

Poland head coach Michał Probierz said: "He’s a legend among the coaches. In general the discussion among all the coaches was about football, what can be changed or what new things could be introduced. It was definitely a valuable experience."

Albania coach Sylvinho, who played under Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, said such gatherings were an important part of improving the game.

"It's always good to talk to people like Arsène Wenger (who) is a great coach. His career is unbelievable, it’s brilliant. And also even for me, it’s very special: I was a football player for him. So, he was my old boss. It’s very good to hear from him," said the Brazilian.

"You’ve got a lot of things around football, rules, and (we have to) try to make football even better and better. It’s not easy at all because of course there are a lot of points of view, but at least you have to try. As a coach, you have to try to pass on (a) great spirit to the players. Fair play is very important, so it was a great time with him."

Romania coach Mircea Lucescu spoke about the players' attitude towards international football. "A club team is different to playing for a national team," he said. "Emotionally, it’s completely different. Players for the national team all want to play for the national team even if they’re tired out. Because it gives them an amazing image – a huge amount of popularity – which they don’t have at club level."

Wales coach Craig Bellamy raised the matter of how different-sized countries faced different issues. "When you have 50 world-class players to pick from, some nations don’t quite have that so when you play in such a short space of time, it suits the teams that have the bigger (pool) to pick from. The smaller nations have to turn the games over and turn the players over quite quickly - it doesn’t quite suit," he said.

"It’s nice to get the feedback and nice to get the awareness, as well, which they’re clearly aware (of), like Arsène... to get their feedback and also to get them to listen to your side, and what we can do to improve (is good)," he added.

"It’s the greatest game in the world, it’s the most participated (in), it’s the most watched... this is the market, this is what we sell (and) we have to make it as exciting as possible for more people to fall in love with the game."