According to Peter Lawwell, chair of Celtic, the development of major competitions has caused the football calendar to reach “more than maxed out” capacity.
Lawwell, who was promoted to the position of vice chairman of the European Clubs Association just a month ago, believes that the wellbeing of players needs to be maintained.
In 2026, there will be 48 teams competing in the finals of the men’s World Cup.
“It seems to me we have pushed it that bit too far, particularly with the new World Cup and the restart dates,” remarked the president.
“Between now and then we must come up with a process that covers everything in terms of player welfare, time on the pitch and time in training.”
The European Championship expanded from 16 to 24 countries in 2016, and the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are expected to be named as the hosts of the expanded tournament in 2028 on Tuesday.
By that time, the first World Cup with 48 teams will have been played, as well as the Club World Cup, which is a competition organized by Fifa that features 32 teams and serves as an effective replacement for the Confederations Cup because it is contested once every four years.
Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United plays the most minutes of any football player in the world. “Players can’t deal any more with this overload.”
As a result of upcoming changes to the structures of both the Champions League and the Europa League, the initial round of competition for both tournaments will consist of eight games rather than the current format of six group contests for each team.
On Friday, the governing body of football around the world, Fifa, announced that the essential dates for the World Cup in 2030, which would be played over three continents, have been confirmed.
The championship match is set to take place on July 21, which is one week later than it would have been otherwise and less than three weeks before the Community Shield would have been played if it had been scheduled in the same time frame as in 2018, which was the year of the final summer World Cup.
Lawwell stated that it was likely that we have reached our absolute limit.
“It has come to a point where it is no longer reasonable to anticipate high-quality results from top athletes across such a large number of competitions in a single year. It is imperative that some action be taken.
The problem of the hectic schedule has been brought up for discussion among the managers in the Premier League this season.
After considering the number of injuries that have occurred to players in the premier league since the start of the season in August, the manager of Manchester United stated that the club is unable to continue dealing with the “overload” of injuries.
Vincent Kompany, who plays for Burnley, has suggested that there should be a limit of between 60 and 70 games every season for each player.
The association of global players According to data that was published by Fifpro last week, United captain Bruno Fernandes had played 6,666 minutes over the course of the previous year, which was more than any other player. On the other hand, Manchester City had four players who ranked in the top 10 in Europe for appearances made. Julian Alvarez, a forward for both City and Argentina, appeared in 66 games while getting his team to the finals of the World Cup and the Champions League.
Throughout the course of history, there has been a lack of confidence between the medical departments of club teams and national teams. In each individual circumstance, the managers in charge must contend with their own unique sets of pressures.
However, Charlie Marshall, the chief executive of the ECA, is of the opinion that the longstanding animosities ought to be put to rest.
“How you manage player health and safety is going to come down to more sophisticated collaboration,” according to him.
“We have to move away from the typical contact that takes place between national teams and clubs, which is that the players go away, and you don’t know anything about what occurs until they come back. This needs to change.
“When it comes to the management of player injuries, we want to create far more trust, teamwork, science, and impartiality. This is so that smart rotation of players, in the interests of either side, truly becomes a possibility.
“We want to see coaches look more sophisticatedly at squad rotation, particularly maybe in some of the less important games to try and achieve something that makes the calendar we are faced with a bit more healthy.”
