Football world to declare war on FIFA

This is one of the big issues shaking up Football news at the start of the season. The overloaded calendar is attracting popular discontent among football players. At the same time, some international players playing in the biggest clubs are going to experience a long and grueling season with a number of matches played that could exceed 80 games, including competitions and international breaks. In the case of Kylian Mbappé’s Real Madrid, for example, the Merengues are competing in a total of seven tournaments: La Liga, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League, the Spanish Super Cup, the European Super Cup, the Club World Cup and the Intercontinental Cup. Other English clubs have nearly six competitions scheduled for this 2024/2025 campaign. A new report from FIFPRO, the international professional football union, highlights widespread concerns about excessive workloads on players, highlighting how the increasing demands of competition are compromising their health and wellbeing. The 2023-24 Player Workload Monitor (PWM Report) reveals that some players are receiving less than one day of rest per week, in breach of international health and safety standards.

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Countless players have sounded the alarm in recent weeks. Manchester City’s Rodri, Liverpool’s Alisson Becker, but above all FC Barcelona’s Jules Koundé: ” The calendar is getting fuller every year, we have more and more games and less and less rest. We’ve been saying it for three or four years and no one listens to us, the players, who are the first actors. There will indeed come a time when we will go on strike. It’s the only way we will have to be heard “, declared the Frenchman. Warnings that had made a lot of noise since these statements, Rodri suffered a rupture of the cruciate ligament in his right knee, while the German goalkeeper of Barça, Marc-André ter Stegen, suffers from a complete rupture of the patellar tendon. All the big clubs are affected by physical problems of varying severity. We can notably think of Martin Ødegaard affected in the ankle or Gonçalo Ramos. With more than 1,500 players monitored, the PWM report revealed that 54% of them are faced with an excessive workload, with almost a third participating in more than 55 matches in a season. Many players have suffered sequences of at least six consecutive weeks of matches, which clearly makes adequate recovery difficult.

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A big trial is long awaited!

Action, reaction. It took little time for the unions to hear the players’ cry of despair. Indeed, a first complaint against FIFA was filed before the High Court of Brussels by the UNFP, the PFA, the AIC and FIFPro Europe — respectively the French, English, Italian and European branch unions of the world union: ” We can turn the calendar over and over again, but at some point, it no longer fits in. Before adding dates like that, there must be agreements between the employer and the employee, in this case the players. The only agreement was reached between FIFA and the ECA in Kigali, almost two years ago. There is a flaw. Enough is enough. This Club World Cup is not the problem. But it is part of the problem. “, declared David Terrier, vice-president of the UNFP, in the columns of The Team. The PWM analysis also shows how international competitions contribute significantly to time pressure on players. For those with excessive workloads, 30% of matches are international matches, which implies considerable commitment outside of competitions with club teams.

But that’s not all, since a second complaint will then be filed on October 14th with the European Commission by the same unions mentioned above, to which must be added those of the Premier League, the Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga. But what can the law do in this case? The editorial staff of Foot Mercato devoted a large file to this subject this week. The legislation varies according to the country, but in France, the Sports Code indicates that ” Sports federations ensure the health of their members and take the necessary measures to this end […] in particular with regard to the calendar of competitions which they organise or authorise “, as he writes in Article L. 231-5. As for the Football Charter, it authorizes the period of paid leave over a total period of at least 18 consecutive working days during the off-season and six consecutive working days at the end of the calendar year, including December 24 and 25. To paraphrase La Liga president Javier Tebas, ” A football strike can be real. The unions and leagues are quite united.»