The consortium of European football leagues and European footballers’ representative body FIFPRO Europe will file a joint complaint about FIFA’s international match calendar and risks to players’ health to the European Union’s antitrust regulators on Monday.

European Leagues and FIFPRO Europe announced their decision to lodge the complaint on Thursday, two weeks after Europe’s top court ruled that the world football governing body’s player transfer rules breach EU laws following a challenge by French former player Lassana Diarra.

The complaint also underlined a growing tendency by disgruntled athletes and sports organisations to turn to the EU antitrust enforcer to help secure a level playing field and chip away at the power of governing bodies.

European Leagues and FIFPRO’s grievance centres on the international match calendar – which they say has become unsustainable for national leagues and a health risk for players, arguing FIFA was abusing its market power.

FIFA in turn has said the current calendar was unanimously approved by its council after a comprehensive consultation, which included FIFPRO and league bodies.

The European Commission, which acts as the competition enforcer for the 27-country bloc, can order companies to stop anti-competitive practices and also fine them.

A FIFPRO report in September warned that the increasingly packed football calendar risked players’ health and has left some with as little as 12 percent of the year to rest, which is equivalent to less than one day off per week.

FIFPRO 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 percent of 1,500 players monitored faced high workload demands, with many exceeding medical recommendations.

Nearly a third (31 percent) were in matchday squads for more than 55 games, and 17 percent played in more than 55 matches. About 30 percent 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 in June 2025 in the United States.

International fixtures, with club or country, account for 30 percent of the matches for players with excessive workloads. Players spent up to 18 percent 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 and 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 percent 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 more than 40 between 2012 and 2024 and about 5 percent 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.

“With this 1 or 2 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.”

Source: BBC

BDST: 1006 HRS, OCT 12, 2024
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