Wenger, appointed in 1996, is the longest-serving manager in Arsenal’s history and has presided over arguably their greatest-ever achievement – the "Invincibles" season in 2003-2004, when the club went through the entire league campaign without losing a match.

The 67-year-old Frenchman has led the club to three Premier League titles and six FA Cup triumphs. He has also qualified for the Champions League, UEFA’s flagship club competition, for 17 seasons in a row, but a period largely bereft of trophies has prompted large sections of Arsenal’s support to say enough is enough.

Fans are starting to turn on Wenger, with the vitriol towards him dramatically increasing following an abject capitulation in a 5-1 mauling by Bayern Munich in the Champions League earlier this week.

Some simply feel he has outstayed his welcome and that he has been hanging on to the job for too long.

It is an accusation which has also been levelled at countless officials within the often turbulent world of footballing governance. Disgraced former FIFA President Sepp Blatter was one such example.

Another is 71-year-old Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Issa Hayatou.

The Cameroonian, a longstanding FIFA Executive Committee member, who served as interim President before Gianni Infantino was elected to replace Blatter, has been at the helm of the continental governing body for 29 years following his election in 1988 and he is now seeking another term.

Hayatou has, for the most part, been largely untouched and has enjoyed an almost seamless retention of power throughout his tenure. In fact, the only difficulties he has faced in terms of the Presidency are his own well-documented health issues. This time, however, he has a real challenge on his hands in the form of Madagascar Football Association President Ahmad Ahmad.

The CAF Executive Committee member perhaps represents the greatest-ever threat to the Cameroonian’s Presidency. And Hayatou knows it.

When the CAF chief caught wind of Council of Southern African Football Associations (COSAFA) President Philip Chiyangwa’s plans to hold a meeting in Harare next week with the heads of other African Federations– which he claims is merely to coincide with his birthday celebrations – Hayatou responded with a strongly-worded letter.

Written by CAF secretary general Hicham El Amrani, who we can safely assume is speaking on the President’s behalf, the document fired a clear warning to Chiyangwa, who also leads the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZFA), accusing him of attempting to "destabilise" their organisation.

The letter appears to be indicative of the concern felt by Hayatou over the growing support for the man in the opposite corner of the ring.

This all came after the COSAFA, which has 14 members, had dared to confirm its unanimous backing for Ahmad’s campaign. They want to see him unseat Hayatou and the current CAF administration do not like it one bit.

The row was not quite finished there. Chiyangwa gave a riposte of his own, demanding an apology from the CAF for their accusations. The self-proclaimed Zimbabwean "God of Football" also said he felt more than a touch of surprise at the content of the letter, as well as the tone it was delivered in.

"I was taken aback, to say the least, by the tone of your letter and the clear insinuation that such an informal gathering of my family and friends, be they Presidents of Member Associations on the African continent, would be considered, outrightly, as an attempt to destabilise CAF," Chiyangwa wrote.

"The informal gathering styled as ‘Dr Philip Chiyangwa birthday and COSAFA Presidency victory celebration’, is merely my belated birthday celebration, as I was born on February 3, 1959, and I also intend, on the same occasion, to celebrate my ascendancy to the COSAFA Presidency.

"This, in my view, does not violate any football statutes.

"In the circumstances, considering the clear misapprehension of my noble intentions by CAF, an apology is warranted for the inconvenience caused by the allegations arising from your letter."

The fact that the gathering in the Zimbabwean capital is due to be attended by Infantino will far from appease Hayatou. The two are thought to have a fractious relationship fraught with underlying tension, particularly after the CAF President chose to support Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa rather than the Swiss-Italian during last year’s FIFA Presidential election.

Infantino his since tried to distance himself from Hayatou by removing him as chairman of the FIFA Finance Committee. It is thought the FIFA President sees him as a reminder of the old guard, whose behaviour plunged world football’s governing body into a corruption scandal it is still trying to recover from.

New has already replaced the old at FIFA and UEFA following the election of Aleksander Čeferin to succeed banned former President Michel Platini at the European governing body and that surely is the way forward. 

Hayatou has had his fair share of links to wrongdoing in the past - all of which he denies - and it is now time for him to step aside and let someone else take the reins.

Only time will tell if Ahmad is the right candidate for the job, but the CAF could do much worse than giving him the opportunity to stamp his authority on the organisation and take it in a direction other than the path chosen by Hayatou for the best part of three decades.

Financial transparency is one of Ahmad's main pledges, while he has also vowed to restructure the CAF through an "eight needs programme", entitled Need for Change, Renewal, Progress, Evaluation, International Partnerships, Consistency, New Resources and Legal Protection of Minors.

Under Ahmad, the CAF would be split into three departments - football development, competitions and marketing, finances and communication - while a "compliance department" would also be established.

"Our football has been too strongly relying too much on its ‘official’ course since 1957, when CAF was created," Ahmad told Kwese Sports.

"It is now high time for it to free itself and to update with the current situation."

In fairness to Hayatou, an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee, there is little doubt African football has developed in a positive manner since he took charge. Their teams are no longer there to purely make up the numbers at World Cup tournaments  - Ghana were a Luis Suarez handball away from reaching the semi-finals in South Africa in 2010 - and the continent boasts more than its fair share of world-class talent, such as Ivorian Didier Drogba and Borussia Dortmund star Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who plays his international football for Gabon.

Dear friends, may I share you my Vision and my Mission for the African Football. #TogetherForChange pic.twitter.com/0uVZxITvT2

— AHMAD (@AHMADCAF2017) February 16, 2017

Blatter, a key confidant and friend of Hayatou, can take a large amount credit for the this, most notably due to his considerable cash injections into the development of football in the region throughout his 17-year spell as FIFA President.

The CAF are also set to be one of the main beneficiaries of FIFA’s expansion of the World Cup from 32 to 48 nations as no fewer than nine African sides could be at the tournament from 2026 onwards, an increase from the five places they currently have.

Of course, the CAF has also faced its fair share of difficulties, not least with the seemingly constant allegations levelled at the feet of Hayatou throughout his Presidency. Ranging from being sanctioned by the IOC for his involvement in an alleged bribery scandal to claims earlier this year that he broke Egyptian competition law, corruption accusations have never been far away.

Not only that, but the Africa Cup of Nations, CAF's main product, still fails to some extent to garner the global attention it craves, while the recent tournament in Gabon struggled domestically, with poor attendances greeting a large number of group and knockout matches.

Some believe Hayatou has ruled with an iron fist, while African media have often labelled him as a dictator, which provides one possible reason as to why he has faced such meek and weak challenges in the past (he was elected unopposed in 2013). The sagacity of the man from the Northern Cameroonian town of Garoua is another.

"Many of my colleagues are demanding for change. And I believe that it is time for change, which is why I have decided to challenge him in the elections," Ahmad told respected African football journalist Osasu Obayiuwana.

"We cannot keep complaining about the problems of African football in private and not be prepared to do nothing about it in the open. Why are people so afraid?"

Hayatou has always known how to play the field, how to ensure those who might have considered going up against him invariably decide not to. In this regard, this time he has not been so successful.

The battle lines have been well and truly drawn with the CAF election, scheduled for March 16 in Addis Ababa, looming large in what could represent a defining moment for the governing body. Can Hayatou cling on, like Arsenal fans believe his French-speaking counterpart has done in recent years, or will Ahmad prevent him from securing an eighth term in office?

There will be those who feel the best decision for both Hayatou and Wenger would be to walk away, but the obdurate nature of two men for whom football is their lifeblood suggests this is a long way off.