Enjoy Sunday’s final: it might be the last of its kind for a while

 

 

• Who controls football: Leagues, media, government, rich clubs. Part 1
• Will Arsenal slip through two major signings as the Euros reach their end?

Footballers are now involved in a never-ending schedule, rather like Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour.   But both players and clubs are saying this now has to stop for one simple reason.  Uefa and Fifa have refused even to join in a debate with players’ representatives over how to keep the expansion of football under control.

And for once, representatives of the players via their union, and representatives of the clubs in the major leagues, are working together to stop overplaying.  They have in fact organised a conference under the auspices of FIFPRO are which players representatives accuse the organisers of international football of thinking merely of their own interests with absolutely no regard for the well-being of the players – who have had enough.

The argument being made is that the organisers of each international tournament thinks only of their own competition, without any thought of what is happening before or after, or on occasion, at the same time as they each fight for time on the international calendar.  

Of course, long, long gone are the days of Arsenal kicking off with a match against Barnet, as everything is now scheduled and arranged for maximum TV coverage – which of course in Arsenal’s case (given its ownership) means games in the United States.

Meanwhile, Uefa is demanding more and more for itself (which raises the question, what on earth is it doing with all its money).  So the Champions League now means every major club gets at least two more matches in the new 36 team league.

Worse, the next world cup is going to be played in three different countries with 48 countries having teams in the finals.  Plus we have the Club World Cup which looks to be growing as well, under the well known Fifa concept, “if it makes money, milk it.”

Tragically one of the architects of all this is none other than my personal hero, whose brilliance I have so often highlighted on this site:  Arsène Wenger.  He is the Fifa Head of Global Development.  We can imagine what he would have said about all this during his time at Arsenal.

In fact you might remember when Mr Wenger joined with Gerard Houlier and said about Fifa and Uefa being like car thieves. “Gerard’s thoughts on the matter echo mine.   He thinks what the national coaches are doing is like taking the car from his garage without even asking permission.  They’ll then use his car for ten days, and abandon it in a field without any petrol left in the tank.

“We have to recover it, but it is broken down. A month later, they’ll come to take your car again – and for good measure you’re expected to be nice about it. The national coaches have the law on their side nowadays. None of them call any more. They don’t have to make any compromises. “

Now he sings a different tune, saying, “It’s important that we make football really global and this creates a chance for other clubs to progress, this is the real target. It will give more opportunities to more players all over the world to compete at the highest level. I feel there is a huge expectation from football fans to see their clubs compete on the world stage.”

Fortunately, however, the players are not taking this lying down, even if the clubs are.  FIFPRO Europe launched its legal action against Fifa along with three individual players’ unions, in which they question the legality of Fifa’s actions arguing that this much football is physically impossible for players.

And the issue is not just that of injury and physical fatigue, nor just that players are increasingly going to be unavailable for their clubs who pay their wages, there is also the mental health issues that arise from playing this much football and shuffling eternally from country to country.  

Of course this is one of the issues the broadcasters do not mention, simply because they are the beneficiaries of each new tournament.   For the journalists, it is yet another jolly time out staying in good hotels and a bar tab they don’t have to pick up.

As Henry Winter once said, “We wouldn’t treat racehorses like this,”