appeal to the EU or ordinary justice | Relief

Last April, Rodri said, almost anxiously, that he needed to rest. This wasn’t the first time, back in August he noted that it was important to regulate his time because at this rate he would explode. His pleas were of little use, he missed four games in the entire Premier League and three of them due to suspension, he played almost all of the Champions League, the FA Cup and, of course, he was the first. that the coach puts 11 in any match in Spain. FIFpro, the global footballers’ union, wants this to end and Relevo has learned that they are preparing concrete actions to confront FIFA and correct this trend.

Last year, Rodri played 5,841 minutes for the national team and club, across 63 games, averaging 92 minutes each. To this must be added 69,700 kilometers of international distance traveled. A year without stopping for a moment.

The data comes from the FIFpro union, which has been running a five-year program to monitor minutes and travel pressures affecting more than 1,500 male and female players worldwide. The Union of International Unions gathered the international press a week before the Champions League final to say that the players’ health, both mental and physical, was indeed at risk.

Yet UEFA has proposed a bigger Champions League next season and FIFA wants a 32-team Club World Cup at the end of the season, the same one that sparked controversy this week over some of Ancelotti’s language. There won’t be a day without football. The direction of football in recent decades has always been the same: more, more and more..

Relevo has learned that the measures proposed by FIFpro are being tested. judicial and administrative actions both in the EU and in some countries to stop this process or even reverse it.

The union points out that the main person responsible for the current state of affairs is FIFA, since in the latter case it is responsible for organizing the world football calendar, and now it also wants to overload it with another competition. Thus, the trials will be directed against the organization led by Gianni Infantino.

FIA precedent

The first option that the world football unions have is to bring charges to the European Commission. They explain that there was a precedent at the beginning of the century when it was believed that the FIA, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, could not be both a sports regulator and its commercial exploiter.. This is a story similar to the history of the Super League, the history of the EU is closely related to the regulation of markets against monopolies. An abuse of power that the players believed could have been illegal.

They understand that a complaint to the Commission could prove them right in this area, which would represent a significant setback for FIFA, which would have to be more receptive to players’ requests. They believe that they have time to retreat from this issue and that this competition should not exist.. The precedents are not very flattering, although they remember that in recent seasons they removed replays FA Cup, this is one of the few times where the number of matches played has actually decreased.

This is not the only option the players’ union is considering: in some countries, unions may report on workers’ working conditions, with the understanding that there may be an abuse of power between employer and employee. They remember that it doesn’t really matter that the players are highly paid employees. – in fact, the cases with the greatest party load occur, logically, among the most elite elite – because in this case the salary matters the least.

Is there any solution to this problem other than this confrontation? The International Football Union understands that yes: reduce the load on matches. The best players play over the age of 65, which is considered “unsustainable” by FIFpro.. They believe that a footballer should not play more than 55 games a year and that the season should include four weeks of complete rest in the summer and two more in the middle of the season.

They believe that based on these basic rules, organizations can do whatever they want, play as many games as they want, but always impose restrictions on the use of players. Yeah If the limit were set per player, it would be necessary to look at whether the competition was unloaded or whether coaches were simply faced with the need to better distribute the load on their players..

Sources interviewed also remember that due to such a number of matches, not only football players are at risk, but also the viewer is offered a spectacle worse than it could be. In the end, this load also represents a decrease in productivity, it is impossible to play so much, so often without the level dropping.