Why the fuck are they tiptoeing around it?
It’s been like fourth interview about it.
A - YOU ARE SAYIN SOMETHING ABOUT IT
B - Footballers show how they are really not the brightest.
They really are privileged type of a worker, which has both time and money to organize biblical proportions of a union, but they don’t for some reason.
Any real threat of a strike from such union and players, clubs and football organizations would shit their pants.
But they are just plain stupid with really weak ass union and just do PR stuff about it.
It’s like that Mendy/Vini/Mephis case, when they are rather sniff their own farts and pat themselves on their back and do nothing about it.
Legitimately curious, is there a footballers union? Do they have any actual recourse into forcing leagues and/or FA’s to lessen the games being forced upon them?
England has the PFA but I would imagine other leagues have similar players unions. How well they all operate and how effective they are is a different matter
Yeah and they likely see lower team games as crucial for getting career stats. If they only play against bigger teams, their individual stats will drop off.
Ridiculous that a kid who earned a $10m/year contract based on <100 matches in his career complains about the number of matches being played.
These guys play football, get the life of luxury, free cars, villas, adoration of millions, and yet all you hear is about too many matches.
You don’t even have to go far deep to see how delusional this is. Ask any League 1, 2, etc. player about this and they’d laugh you out of the room for the simple fact that this problem exists for 0.5% of the players, all of whom are multimillionaires.
And yet, somehow, people feel sorry for them.
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Kind of odd how basketball has the exact opposite problem, which I imagine comes from the fact that the regular season doesn’t really matter to them
The back-to-back appearance percentages for the players profiled in the report is pretty alarming so I hope they can figure out a viable solution.
International players union!
They should but they also want more and more money. And to generate the income there are more and more matches. You can’t get both
imagine a player’s strike
Very mind blowing!
In the report, there is a wow visual of Jude’s minutes (club & country) at age 20 v other players at age 20, but here is the data:
- 829 Beckham
- 2,853 Gerrard
- 3,477 Lampard
- 9,187 Owen
- 10,989 Rooney
- 14,445 Jude
“If they die, they die” - FIFA
I mean, youre a player dog. Do and say something.
The FIFPRO report is a very well research report I highly recommend!
2023 FIFPRO Extreme Calendar Congestion: Adverse Effects on Player Health & Wellbeing Report
Key findings/takeaways:
- While the risks of injury and deteriorating performance are widely known, the report also illustrates dangers to career longevity, mental health, and personal lives.
- Today’s elite young players like Vinicius Jr have played up to double previous generation.
- Football stakeholders have disregarded health safeguards in favour of competition expansion to generate more revenue. eg expanded Club World Cup & Champions League, which could increase number of games by 11% for top players.
- FIFPRO seeks mandatory season breaks, limit on back-to-back games to protect players, and the minimisation of international travel.
The clubs & fans are negatively impacted also:
- The report also analyses the cost of injuries to clubs, broadcasters, and fans because of the large number of players missing matches in the ‘big five’ leagues this {22/23} season.
Minutes for current U25 vs previous generations:
- Vinicius Jr has at age 22 already played 18,876 minutes club and national team football, more than twice as much as former Brazil playmaker Ronaldinho at the same age.
- Spain’s Pedri had at the age of 20 played more than 12,000 minutes, 25 percent more minutes than Xavi at the same age.
- France’s Kylian Mbappe has at age 24 played 26,952 minutes, 48 percent more minutes than Thierry Henry at the same age.
- Jude Bellingham will have played more than 30 percent more minutes of competitive football by his 20th birthday later this month than Wayne Rooney, at the same age.
adding - I hope more players better leverage FIFPRO data/services to organize, speak & act on the player welfare challenges.
Lots of these lads won’t have a career by the time they are 30, not only the modern game is much more demanding but the amount of matches is absurd. Good luck going against it tho, money speaks.