Arsene Wenger was spat at during playing career

Arsene Wenger has revealed that he was spat at whilst playing football in France - but that in those days he extracted his own revenge on the pitch

The Arsenal manager says that United defender Jonny Evans - who will be banned for the FA Cup quarter final against Arsenal on Monday  cannot expect any mercy in the modern age of global TV scrutiny.

However, Wenger says the practice was more prevalent in former days when he played for RC Strasbourg in France, but that the lack of TV coverage meant it used to be less of an issue.

Wenger said: 'Today the television makes it worse. I've been subjected personally to spitting. Maybe my tackle was not good enough. At the time nobody spoke about it.

'When I played in France, it happened before but you didn't see it on television. When you see it on television it of course makes it worse. I was angry (when it happened) but I could control myself.'

Asked whether spitting deserved a six-game ban, Wenger said: 'I applied the sentence myself. I don't know the rules well enough. It is rules. We have to respect the rules. They have to apply the rules.

But Wenger insisted that the likes of Evans and Papiss Cisse have to accept that their actions will incur punishments now that all games are scrutinised by millions of viewers worldwide.

'We have to pay a price for that. We are popular. We are watched all over the world. It gives us some responsibility as well. When you do not live up to it, you have to pay for it.

How much it (the punishment) is, I do not care but you cannot say: 'Ok, it's nothing' when you see in on television. When little boys are watching the game, if your boy says to you: 'Is that right?' You cannot say: 'Yes.'

'We have to accept that. There are cameras everywhere, that means we are spied on always basically, from morning until night, and that's a little bit less freedom to go over the line sometimes.

'It's good, it's good. You know it's like now the doping story that is coming out in cycling now.

Even if it's 10 years later, 15 years later, people will be less inclined to do it today because they think: 'Oh, for the rest of my life that could come out, so I won't do it.'

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