Football players are threatening legal action over the increasing match demands placed on their bodies with new and expanding competitions, their union has told Sky News.
The welfare warning follows our analysis finding a male player could be required for an unprecedented 86 matches from next season with the UEFA Champions League adding games and FIFA introducing a new summer competition for clubs.
The congested fixture list leaves players with little space for rest and recovery with FIFA yet to grant union demands for a mandatory 28-day off-season break.
Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive Maheta Molango told Sky News: “I feel like we’ve reached a stage where people are ready to take legal action, where people are ready to take tangible action on the pitch to try to resolve it, because it’s a sad state of affairs.
“I think it’s a defeat for football when the players need to take the justice in their own hands because they don’t feel protected.”
The concerns are magnified by FIFA introducing a new 32-team Club World Cup in 2025 when most Premier League players would be on holiday.
The 2025-26 Premier League campaign could start barely a month later and that season ends with another World Cup – for national teams – and the first since FIFA expanded it from 32 to 48 nations.
Asked if competition organisers risk killing football, Mr Molango responded: “I think they are. But I think that the players are ready now to take a strong stance.
“I do think that the authorities who are supposed to protect the players and protect the games are not doing that. They are generating more competitions, generating more income to the detriment of the players.”
Growing the game
FIFA maintains its new Club World Cup – featuring 12 teams from Europe, including at least Manchester City and Chelsea from England – is about growing the game globally.
The world governing body points to the backing of the European Club Association, although that organisation’s support came amid a deal to help sell commercial rights with FIFA.
But Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has protested about the new tournament in a letter to FIFA through the World Leagues Forum (WLF), which he also leads.
Sky News understands the WLF claimed FIFA is overlooking the needs of national competitions by overloading the calendar and prioritising its own interests and events over governing the sport.
FIFA, under Gianni Infantino since 2016, has been seeking a bigger footprint on football and more and bigger tournaments.
Mr Molango said: “What we all seem to forget is that ultimately, they’re all using the same assets – and I’m using the word assets for purpose because they all want to milk the same cow.
“And it’s just impossible because ultimately, the players – for as much as they are privileged people who make a very good living – the human body only allows you to do so much.”
Manchester City could face 86-game season
This is what could be required of a Manchester City player in the 2024-25 season – with 86 games potentially in total.
If City are English and European champions again, they will be contesting the domestic Community Shield and UEFA Super Cup in August around the start of the 38-game Premier League season.
Then comes the launch of the new-look Champions League with the group stage growing from six to eight games between September and December.
National teams will also have a pair of games in September, October and November.
December will see another FIFA launch, with the Intercontinental Cup final contested by the European champions.
January will see the start of the FA Cup and a maximum of six games to win it – assuming replays are scrapped to address congestion concerns.
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There have been talks about the League Cup switching to single semi-finals rather than playing over two legs – although City could still face five games in total with a run to the final.
February could see a team facing a new Champions League playoff round to reach the last-16 of the knockout stage if they are not among the top eight teams in the reformatted group stage.
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That means it could now take 17 matches to win Europe’s top prize rather than the 13 fixtures in City’s journey to glory last season.
And once the Champions League final is played on 31 May in Munich, players are far from being able to rest.
The ninth and tenth national-team games of the season will be played which, for some, could be the Nations League finals – an addition to the calendar since being launched by UEFA in 2018.
And that brings us to 15 June and the start of the Club World Cup.
‘This is a defeat for football’
The 32-team extravaganza is set to be staged every four years, replacing the little-regarded annual seven-team event that City won the final version of last week.
After a three-team group stage, there will be another four matches up to the final.
The competition is taking the quadrennial slot used up to 2017 for the now-defunct, eight-country Confederations Cup that served as a World Cup test event.
But the union feels its alarm about the burden on players was disregarded by FIFA with little time for recovery and a pre-season before the 2025-26 season has to begin.
It is a quandary football must address – the more matches for players the less likely they could be fit to play them all.
“It’s yet another example of authorities making decisions without contemplating what the consequences would be for player welfare,” said Mr Molango, who sits on the board of international union FIFPRO.
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“This is a defeat for football. As fans we want to see the best players on the pitch and performing at the best level.
“And right now with the current calendar it is physically, humanly impossible.”
Additional reporting by sports producer Tyrone Francis
