FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Champions League - Round of 16 - Second Leg - Manchester City v FC Copenhagen - Etihad Stadium, Manchester, Britain - March 6, 2024 General view of the ball REUTERS/Phil Noble/File photo
(Reuters) -The increasingly packed soccer calendar has left some players with as little as 12% of the year to rest, which is equivalent to less than one day off per week, a report by global players' union FIFPRO said.
FIFPRO, which is filing a complaint to EU antitrust regulators against world soccer governing body FIFA's international match calendar, said the lack of rest contravenes international health and safety standards and is a result of competition organisers not prioritising player welfare.
A report for the 2023-24 season said 54% of 1,500 players monitored faced high workload demands, with many exceeding medical recommendations.
Nearly a third (31%) were in matchday squads for more than 55 games, and 17% played in over 55 matches. About 30% featured in at least six straight weeks of two or more games per week.
All three European club competitions have been expanded to 36 teams this season and FIFPRO's European member unions have started legal action against FIFA over the expanded men's 32-team Club World Cup, starting next June in the United States.
International fixtures, with club or country, account for 30% of the matches for players with excessive workloads. Players spent up to 18% of their annual working time in national team camps or media and partnership activities last season.
“The gap between those who plan and schedule complex international competitions and those who play and experience them has never been bigger,” Alexander Bielefeld, FIFPRO's Director of global policy & strategic relations, said in a statement.
The report also predicted players like Federico Valverde, Nicolo Barella and Phil Foden will play up to 80 matches in future seasons due to expanding competitions.
Another report by the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) said there was no clear evidence of a rise in elite player workload since the 2000s.
The independent research centre in Switzerland, which was founded in 1995 in a joint venture including FIFA, reported that national leagues accounted for 82.2% of all matches played by players from 40 leagues surveyed between the 2012-13 and 2023-24 seasons.
The report said the average number of fixtures per club and season was stable at just over 40 between 2012 and 2024 and about 5% of clubs play 60 or more games per season (excluding friendlies).
In the 2023-2024 season, England recorded the highest number of domestic back-to-back matches (87) among top European leagues, with Premier League clubs averaging the shortest recovery time between games at 67.3 hours. Additionally, English clubs also topped the list for the most 'non-European' friendlies played.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said that the governing body organises a small fraction of matches but its financial contributions support football development across the world and benefit the sport on a global scale.
"All other matches, 98 to 99 percent, are organised by other organisations, by different leagues, associations and confederations," Infantino said during his speech at the FIFA Congress in Bangkok in May 2024.
“With this one or two percent of matches that FIFA organises, FIFA is financing football all over the world. The revenue that we generate are not just going to few clubs in one country. The revenue that we generate are going to 211 countries. No other organisation does that.”
(Reporting by Shifa Jahan in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris and Toby Davis)
