THE LONG-TERM injury Rodri suffered against Arsenal last Sunday made his comments earlier that week all the more resonant.
“I think we’re close,” he told reporters when asked if players were considering strike action amid the increased demands of the competition schedule.
“It’s the general opinion of the players, and if it keeps this way, we’ll have no other option. I really think it’s something that worries us. We are the guys who suffer.”
A general players’ strike is not imminent, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen before the season’s end.
Any strike could also take several different forms, from the wearing of t-shirts bearing a slogan in protest to the demands, or a collective delay to a game’s kick-off, right up to a collective boycott of fixtures.
Player strikes have happened in the recent past. The start to the 2011/12 La Liga season in Spain was delayed owing to a player strike over a failure to agree a guarantee for players whose wages were unpaid, while Norwegian players went on strike in 2011 over a range of issues including what boots and equipment they must use. There has never been a players’ strike across multiple countries on a single issue, but elite players have never faced demands like these before.
FIFPro are the global players’ union: they are made up of 66 national players’ associations, and represent 66,000 men’s and women’s players across the world. Having been mandated by their members, FIFPro have analysed players’ workloads over recent years and found that many have already surpassed their limits.
As part of their research, FIFPro surveyed 100 high performance experts to determine what an elite player’s limit is: 88% said players should not play more than 55 games a season.
In FIFPro’s analysis for the workload across the 23/24 season, they found 55% of respondents – more than 400 players – had exceeded the 55-game threshold.
Rodri played 66 games across last season, totalling 6,107 minutes on the pitch. In total, he averaged 127 hours between matches. Bruno Fernandes has played at least 60 games in each of the last five seasons – playing 75 games for club and country in 22/23 alone – while Julian Alvarez played 75 games last season.
With the expansion of the Uefa Champions League and Fifa Club World Cup, FIFPro say some players involved in these competitions could end up playing up to 85 games this season.
Research during the summer from research body CIES Football Observatory disputed FIFPro’s claims of increased workload. CIES is an independent research institution based in Switzerland that was part-founded by Fifa in 1995, from whom it continues to receive annual support. It received $4.7 million in funding from Fifa in 2022.
CIES analysed the workload of 20,000 players across 40 top-tier leagues and found that the number of minutes played on the pitch has remained constant across the last 12 seasons, excluding those interrupted by Covid. This, CIES say, is “contrary to the narrative currently popular within the football ecosystem” on the topic of player workload.
FIFPro’s argument is the increased workload is concentrated among the very best players. They cite a study conducted in Portugal and France, in which it was found that an average of eight players fulfilled 50% of a team’s total minutes, with the remaining 50% shared across the rest of the squad.
They warn that elite players nowadays risk burn-out earlier in their careers. Based on his current trajectory, Jude Bellingham is forecast to play a total of 1224 games in his career, and he made 251 appearances before he turned 21. By contrast, David Beckham played 54 games before he turned 21, where Frank Lampard played 93, and Wayne Rooney 212.
FIFPro are also at pains to point out that player workload should not be measured in just the number of matches played, but seen more holistically. Even if a player is an unused substitute for a game, they still have to commit to travel, the mental stress of preparation, and, in instances of late kick-offs, a disrupted sleep cycle.
One of FIFPro’s case studies across the 22/23 season was PSG and Brazil defender Marquinhos, who spent 80% of his year in a work setting, with the remaining 20% allotted to the off-season and days off during the season.
FIFPro say the demands on players are leading to increased risk of injury, which in turns leads to the possibility of shortened careers. They also say the demands placed on players are associated with negative mental health outcomes, including anxiety and depression.
Rodri and Jurgen Klopp have also argued that the increase in matches has come at the expense of training time, which lowers the quality of the spectacle for the audience.
One argument is that these extra games have been added to generate revenue for clubs so as to be able to pay the wages of players now complaining about the calendar. One of the players’ responses to this is that they want to have fewer matches so as to be able to train more often, which doesn’t mean they’ll be working any less for their enormous salaries.
Proposed solutions from players include a cap on the number of matches that a single player can play across a single season, likely to be between 50 and 60. They also want a guaranteed four-week rest period in the off-season, and potentially an agreement that a player cannot play in more than six back-to-back matches.
The cut-throat dynamics of football make it difficult to find solutions on an individual basis. FIFPro’s most recent workload report included the results of a survey in France, where 82% of coaches said they fielded players who needed a rest because of the pressure to get results.
Finding a means of agreement is also difficult given footballers don’t have a collective bargaining agreement similar to that used by the players in the major American sports leagues.
There is the added complication that a relatively small proportion of the game’s players are exceeding the 55-game threshold.
Given players compete in continental and global competitions as well as national leagues, these contract agreements would have to be agreed and enforced on a global level. Given Fifa are the game’s global governing body, this would be primarily be a job for them.
It is in seeking solutions to the players’ concerns about the calendar that it becomes evident that this issue is another front in the sport’s broader political battles.
In June of this year, FIFPro lodged legal proceedings against Fifa, questioning the legality of Fifa’s decisions to “unilaterally” set the international match calendar for the sport, which included the expanded Club World Cup next summer.
The players union argue this competition is a “tipping point” amid a calendar which is already “overloaded and unworkable”, which will likely create an additional six weeks’ work for players, when travel and preparation is factored into account. They also claim Fifa “failed to meaningfully engage or negotiate” with the players union over this expansion.
Fifa hit back with a statement of their own, saying the international match calendar was agreed “following a comprehensive and inclusive consultation” with FIFPro and league bodies, and was agreed unanimously by the Fifa Council, representative of all continents. Fifa argue they are protecting “the overall interests of world football” and ensuring that international football can survive and co-exist with the club game.
Fifa accused some leagues in Europe of “acting with commercial self-interest, hypocrisy, and without consideration to everyone else in the world”, pointing out that these leagues are “themselves competition organisers and regulators”.
That latter point is ultimately a key part to this front.
FIFPro cited the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling on the Super League last December, with the breakaway clubs citing competition law in asking the court whether Uefa were abusing a position of monopoly in requiring prior approval for joining any competition that would rival the Champions League.
FIFPro’s legal action asks whether Fifa have done similar with respect to confirming the international match calendar. (Fifa insist they consulted with leagues and FIFPro on the matter.)
One of the arguments for the Super League was whether it was appropriate for Uefa to act as both regulator and organiser for the same competition, and the calendar issue raises the same question.
Can Fifa uphold what FIFPro view as their obligation to safeguard player health and wellbeing given they have a financial and commercial incentive to expand competitions like the Club World Cup to generate more revenue?
Fifa argue that they generate revenues for the benefit of the game around the world, saying they reinvested 89% of their revenue between 2019 and 2022 into the sport.
All of Rodri, Virgil van Dijk, Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappe, Bernardo Silva, Aurelien Tchouameni, Son Heung-min, Robert Lewandowski, Erling Haaland, Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, and Carlo Ancelotti have raised concerns with the demands of the current match calendar. While they represent a small portion of the professional footballers and coaches on the planet, they are the most famous and influential and it is they who power the competitions generating revenue for everyone else.
If they sustain their opposition to the current calendar – and there is nothing at the moment to suggest they won’t – then this problem will escalate, and something will ultimately have to give.
