Resisting The Idea Of A Biennial World Cup, Mbappe: We Play More Than 60 Times A Year, Respect Players' Health

Kylian Mbappe (Twitter @k.mbappe)

JAKARTA - French striker Kylian Mbappe has objected to the idea of a biennial World Cup. The reason is, the quality of football will decline if the players are forced to work too hard in a big tournament with a short time.

The idea of a biennial World Cup continues to surface as FIFA President Gianni Infantino tries to seek support from national federations and he says the switch will result in an additional $4.4 billion in funding for the world organization.

However, the proposal met strong opposition from UEFA (Europe) and CONMEBOL (South America) with UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin threatening to boycott the tournament.

"I'm nobody to say whether it's a good idea or a bad idea, but my opinion is that the World Cup is a World Cup – that's a special thing because it's held every four years," 2018 World Cup winner Mbappe said at the Globe Soccer Awards on Monday, quoting Antara.

"We play more than 60 games a year. You've got the Euros, the World Cup, now the Nations League – there's so much competition. We love to play but when it's too much it's not good. We have to recover and have time to relax too."

"If people want to see the quality in the game, the emotions, to see what makes football beautiful, I think we have to respect the health of the players."

It's not just Mbappe, Poland striker Robert Lewandowski has also said he is "not a fan" of the idea of playing the World Cup every two years citing the players' workload.

"We have so many games every year, so many difficult weeks, not only games but also preparation for the season, preparation for big tournaments," said the Bayern Munich striker.

"If you want to offer something special, something different, we need a break too."

"If you have a World Cup every two years then the time and quality in which football players play at a high level will drop... It's physically and mentally impossible." according to Reuters.