FIFA, UEFA, when will it be enough football?

With the football calendar seemingly growing year on year, will we ever see the players given a much-needed, extended break?

For the elite-level players and coaches, there must have been a sense of dread when it was announced the Champions League would be expanding to 36 teams, with a minimum of two additional fixtures being added to the football calendar, and potentially four, as was the case for PSG this season (last season?). Perhaps that moment of dread came when it was announced that the Nations League, which has proven to be a welcome shift from the tedious nature of international friendlies, had been expanded to include promotion/relegation play-offs, as well as quarter-finals. Maybe it’s as far back as the 2016 European Championships, when UEFA expanded the competition to 24 teams from the original 16, or even when FIFA reacted to this expansion by, you guessed it, expanding the World Cup to 48 teams.

Now, though, it feels like we’re approaching breaking point, or at least the players are. The newly expanded Club World Cup, or as it's better known, Gianni Infantino’s master plan to save football, has shed greater light on an issue in the game in which fans, managers, and most importantly, players have been raising for years now. Despite the grievances of most players, with FIFA and UEFA consistently ignoring any pleas to consider the impact this is having on players' careers, football continues to expand beyond any reasonable workload. In fact, the answer to almost any question in football is almost always to add more fixtures to an already heavily congested calendar.

Down the years, the cynic would always have argued that players should not complain about such issues, considering the astronomical wages they’re often earning. Of course, players are well paid, and like it or not, that’s not going to change. In fact, with the addition of more fixtures it seems entirely logical that there will be even more money swirling around the game for these damn prima donnas to get their greedy hands on. With that said, I think the dial has shifted on that now, with even the old school stalwarts recognising that players will eventually succumb to fatigue if they play too much football, or enter the ‘red zone’. People occasionally talk about the need for players to go on strike, but that’s not really the point. Do we really want to push players to a point where they have to push back to such extreme lengths just to get a break from football?

As much as I loathe to use the term, football has become more and more of a product over the years. With that being said, running players into the ground is only going to damage the product on show. My obsession with football goes beyond simply watching the games being played. I tend to keep up to date with all news through different media outlets and podcasts, but even I’m feeling a sense of fatigue with the sheer volume of football being played, so I can’t imagine how the players must be feeling!

The pure saturation of football only serves to dampen the excitement around it. When football is available every single evening, even during the summer break, it starts to become a little bit mundane. Even if players are exhausted, they will still run and run until their muscles literally give up. Both FIFA and UEFA know that even though players will air their frustrations about the fixture pile-up, they will still be forced to play. Yes, they can come to agreements with their clubs to sit out certain fixtures, but ideally, we want to see the best players playing at every opportunity. We should be looking to protect these players from these inevitable injuries. I’d like to see players negotiating a maximum number of matches into their contracts when signing for clubs, although this is still potentially weakening their hand when it comes to negotiating terms. It wouldn’t be an ideal situation, but something needs to give.

The crux of the issue is that you have two separate governing bodies in football in FIFA and UEFA. Instead of working together to improve the game, they’re essentially competing against one another to gain a stronger foothold in the sport. I’m aware there are other entities in the world of football, but the issue has been accelerated with FIFA watching on as the UEFA Champions League has been a massive success, with revenues soaring as each season passes. FIFA specifically identified a gap in the market (as small as that gap is), and an expanded, global tournament in the club game was always going to be the next evolution, particularly when you have such influential figures as Florentino Pérez endorsing the competition. The Champions League expansion felt like a meeting in the middle with club owners keen to guarantee revenue streams every year, a de facto European Super League. Ultimately, the clubs view this competition as another huge revenue source, which is ultimately just creating greater financial disparities in an already disproportionate landscape.

Auckland City, a team of semi-professionals, will earn upwards of €10 million in prize money for their three group-stage matches, which is likely to completely distort their domestic competition in New Zealand. FIFA can hardly argue that this is improving these individual footballing ecosystems. The qualification criteria for the competition are flawed, with the champions of England, Italy and Spain all not meeting the threshold. Chelsea, however, despite only having a Conference League title to show for their efforts in the past four years, have managed to qualify due to winning the Champions League back in 2021. This leads to another issue with this tournament, particularly if the plan is for it to take place in the summer time every four years, which might soon become every two years. How could you have the league winners guaranteed entry into the competition if their domestic season often only concludes roughly three weeks before the Club World Cup is due to kick off? FIFA seemingly made the decision to announce the participants as early as possible to ensure they have the necessary time to prepare, but you’re leaving yourself open to criticism around what teams qualify. Realistically, if you’re going to push through a tournament of this nature, then it really leaves no option but to prematurely announce the participants. This isn’t solely a criticism of the Club World Cup, but it is part of the discussion.

It’s not to say the Club World Cup shouldn’t exist; it should, and the fervent atmospheres generated by South American fans prove that this tournament does mean something to fans. Fatigue seems to be playing some part in this for the European teams, but it has most likely ensured more tightly contested matches taking place, which has enhanced the spectacle. But surely FIFA and UEFA need to come together at some point and reach some sort of compromise.

According to Transfermarkt, Lamine Yamal, who is still just 17 years of age, has already racked up 126 appearances in his short playing career (106 for Barcelona and 20 for the Spanish national team). It’s pretty absurd when you consider the levels he’s already reached, but this won’t be sustainable if he plans on playing for another 15+ years, which we would all assume he does. It’s unquestionably a benefit Barcelona are not involved in this edition, but they likely will be in the coming years. We’ve seen the likes of Ronaldo (the Brazilian one), Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen, to name just a few, rack up a huge number of appearances during their early careers, only to suffer drop-offs in their physical levels once they reach their so-called peak age. While it seems pretty crazy to assume the same could happen with Yamal, there has to come a time when these players are given the necessary time to recuperate. It shouldn’t necessarily be left to the players and managers to pick and choose when they can play in order to avoid risking injury. We want to see the best players at their optimum level as much as possible, so take the decision out of their hands.

It's difficult to see football ever truly rowing back, with increased demand and finances involved, so it might be ultimately left to the players to make a stand. One thing is for sure: football seems reluctant to truly help them, so they need to help themselves.