LONDON - Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, raised the prospect of English football becoming a target of violent extremism, in comments to newspaper.

LONDON - Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, raised the prospect of English football becoming a target of violent extremism, in comments to newspaper.

Wenger spoke in the wake of the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team that left eight people dead as they travelled to a Test match in Lahore, Pakistan last week.

"It has happened to us, where we have had alerts before games at home," Wenger told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

"We kept quiet about it. I wonder about this because in England, you don't get any police escort before games - they refuse, especially in London.

"We (the world of football) don't regard ourselves as terror targets but you wonder why not."

Unlike Manchester United, Arsenal doesn't employ private security, the paper said, adding Wenger thought this was the responsibility of the state.

"You rely on the internal security of the country where you are," he said.

He added that he had had security worries as manager in Japan.

"I remember when I was in Japan, I had this problem as well because we had at that stage somebody who had all the machinery and they put sarin gas into the subway." Wenger also expressed concern that tournaments like the World Cup and European Championships could be targeted, the paper said.

- Sapa-AFP