No Rest For the Futbol Players

Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan played in the Champions League Final on Saturday.  They'll both be playing in the Club World Cup and will have a whopping two weeks off before beginning that tournament...in Los Angeles!  Oh, yeah, and the PSG and Inter players from France, Germany, Spain and Portugal also have the UEFA Nations League Finals during that week in between.  But, hey, at least they get to stay in Munich for that!

This is supposedly the "offseason," mind you.  Yet, you would never know it.  The Club World Cup ends on July 13.  European domestic league seasons start in mid-August.  So, the players will get a grand total of maybe three weeks off before training camp.  If their team makes a deep run at the Club World Cup, it'll be even less.

Then, after the 2025-26 club season starts in August, they'll have either 34 or 38 league games (depending on the country) plus their domestic trophy plus the Champions League plus World Cup qualifying.  And next summer is the World Cup.  Throw in the fact that the Euro and Copa America were last summer and that's essentially three years of uninterrupted play for the world's best soccer players.  Which is absurd!

FIFA can talk about "player safety" all they want.  It's all just lip service.  Because they don't actually care about player safety and everyone knows it.  Not when they can make more money with the ever-expanding calendar.  Never mind the fact that the exhausted players are expected to participate in all of these events.  Because they don't need rest or time off to recover from injuries or anything!

What FIFA is asking of these players truly is incredible.  And not in a good way!  Because it's completely unreasonable to expect them to participate in all of these events without sitting any of them out.  In fact, they aren't even really given the option of not playing in any of these tournaments.

Their clubs pay them handsomely, so they can't miss club games (unless they're out with an injury, which is really the only reason that's considered valid).  Sure, they can probably work it that they play limited minutes or not at all against an opponent that's set to be relegated, but that's really about it.  You're not letting them sit out a Champions League game. 

And, if they're National Team players, there's always a chance they won't get called up during one of the FIFA breaks, but if you're selected, it's not like you can't go.  Not if you want to have any chance of being on the World Cup roster!  And these National Teams need their best players for World Cup qualifying, so they know they've got to play.  These aren't meaningless friendlies against two random countries.   

I'm using Europe as my example because most of the world's best players play for European clubs, but the schedule is the same regardless of country.  It's harder for the European-based Brazilian and Argentinian players since they have to go back-and-forth to South America for National Team duty.  And the Brazilian, Argentinian and Mexican leagues have a similar schedule as the European leagues, so those players are looking at the same commitments, in terms of time and number of games.

Since the Premier League and La Liga play the most games in their domestic seasons, I'll use them for my example.  They play 38 league games and anywhere between eight and 14 games in the Champions League, plus however many in their domestic cup competition.  Throw in at least three and as many as seven Club World Cup games, and that's roughly 60 games just for the club.  That doesn't even include any National Team duty!

Sure, the Club World Cup is only once every four years.  But that's being replaced by either the World Cup or Euro/Copa America in the two years on either side, so that doesn't change the maximum number of games you can play in that span.  In all, it could end up being around 200 games for club and country over that three-year span with virtually no breaks.  Which is way too much!

It's the same thing that happened with basketball when FIBA moved its World Cup to the year before the Olympics so that it wouldn't be in the same year as the FIFA World Cup.  For NBA players to participate in both the World Cup and the Olympics in back-to-back summers, that's essentially two years straight of playing high-level basketball.  So, you can't really blame NBA guys for prioritizing one over the other.  That's why the Team USA roster for the two events is usually completely different with the exception of maybe one or two players.

Soccer players, unfortunately, don't really have that option.  I'm sure the enthusiasm for playing in the expanded Club World Cup is slim to none.  Yet they're gonna play anyway because they know that for this tournament to be successful, the star players need to be there.  FIFA knows this, too.  Which is why they're gonna exploit the players.  They know about their concerns and know that they're valid.  They just don't care.

When FIFA announced that the Club World Cup would be expanded to 32 teams, it was about one thing.  Making money.  Except that money will be made on the backs of players whose health and safety weren't even considered.  Which is why the criticism directed at FIFA because of this expansion is totally warranted.  It completely exposes FIFA's hypocrisy.  They claim to care about the players' well-being while actively adding to their already packed schedules. 

Yes, these are professional athletes.  But even professional athletes need an offseason.  I don't know how they can be expected to perform at their best without one.  Especially if they don't get one for three years!  But, hey, I guess they should look at the bright side...They'll get the summer off in 2027!