It’s hard to feel sorry for footballers. Yet the conditions they work under have changed substantially over the past decade, both in the men’s and women’s game. The various organisations in charge of club and international football are determined to add more fixtures to the calendar, and players are being overloaded—to the extent that some major stars have threatened to go on strike.
Industrial action in football is almost unimaginable, but the sport seems to be reaching a breaking point, with players growing increasingly unhappy as serious injuries and fatigue build up. So is there really a chance that football will shut down in the near future, and is the health of footballers actually being put at risk?
All gas no breaks
The football calendar has been getting more crowded for years, but things really came to a head around the pandemic. After a short break during the first lockdown, football quickly came back without crowds, in a truncated season which quickly bled into the next one. The bid to catch up on lost time since then has led to massively reduced downtime for footballers, while the winter World Cup in Qatar caused further disruption to the usual schedule.
At the same time, many of football’s organising bodies have opted to make competitions longer in order to take out more revenue, or even created new ones. The Champions League has now adopted a longer format with more matches, as has the Europa League, while the Europa Conference League ensures that even more teams are now playing European football each season. The Nations League has replaced international friendlies with more games, while FIFA’s new Club World Cup format kicks off next year with a 32-team format.
At the same time, the intensity of modern football appears to be increasing. This is particularly true in the high-octane Premier League, but these principles—imported from Germany and its ‘gegenpressing’ philosophy—have spread throughout European football, with Barcelona now adopting a similar style under Hansi Flick. The result is more teams utilising fast, aggressive players to play at high intensity in more matches—inevitably increasing the potential for injuries.
This isn’t just an issue in the men’s game. ACL injuries in particular are rife in the women’s game, with England captain Leah Williamson, midfielder Beth Mead, Dutch star Vivianne Miedema, and Australian star Sam Kerr all having suffered ACL injuries in the past two years. This has led to speculation about the root causes, ranging from the impact of oestrogen on joint stability, to unique aspects of female anatomy, to the design of football boots. While research is ongoing, the increase in injuries is in proportion to an increase in matches played, with longer seasons and more international football.
The players’ perspective
The argument from players is that, in forcing them to play more matches with less recovery time, the clubs’ health and safety responsibilities are being breached. Football clubs naturally have the same responsibility to keep people safe in the workplace as any other employer. This involves taking all reasonable steps to prevent workplace injuries and illnesses.
Within the context of football, some injuries—such as contact injuries—would be seen as unavoidable. A better comparison might be repetitive strain injuries in an occupation such as construction or manufacturing. This is a foreseeable and preventable risk that should be prevented by employers, such as through the use of protective equipment, rest periods, or staggered shifts. Yet equivalent action to prevent muscle injuries in footballers—frequently the result of ‘overloading’, or playing too much football—do not seem to be being taken.
Part of the problem is that the clubs feel they are not responsible for the number of fixtures being scheduled by the various governing bodies. Conversely, the governing bodies feel that they are not responsible for player safety based on the limited number of games they organise as part of their competitions. There’s also the fact that, while clubs could pull out of a competition, this would be financially and logistically difficult—if not impossible in the case of the Premier League, after the UK government banned any breakaway league formats.
What football is doing
So what can be done to improve player safety? Well, some small measures do exist or have been introduced to reduce the load on players. Countries such as Germany and Spain benefit from a long winter break, with no football played over Christmas. However, this time is increasingly being looked at as a way to cram in more games, such as prestige friendlies abroad. A short winter break was briefly introduced in England, but has not been repeated this year.
Increasingly sophisticated sports science is also helping to reduce recovery times for injuries, though this is hardly a solution to the problem. Some clubs are also shifting their approach, acknowledging the fact that injuries are bad for them from a business perspective, as well as from a legal one. More teams are looking to assemble larger squads in order to cover injuries, and allow for players to be rotated. Small squads such as Manchester City’s have notably struggled this year due to the impact of injuries.
Clubs have also increased their oversight of and support for players’ wellbeing. Substantial efforts are made to support and integrate young players and those moving from other countries, while players also commonly have access to sports psychologists. This can support players’ physical wellbeing as well as mental wellbeing, with help being provided to ensure that they are training well, eating healthily, and generally enjoying the best possible environment to assist with their on-field performance.
What still needs to be done?
What remains to be improved is the approach to physical health. If you have a minor or recurrent injury, it’s usually a case of ‘grin and bear it’. Accounts from current and recent players suggest that if you are important to your team, you will play through pain, take injections, and generally have your health risked in a way that would not be permissible in most other industries. This leads to an accumulation of issues that often debilitates players for the rest of their lives after their short careers—and not all players make enough money to make that subsequent life easier.
In this sense, sports and other physical professions such as wrestling exist within something of a grey area. There’s a general acceptance that many of the injuries sustained and issues endured by people in these industries shouldn’t be permissible, but because the (often young) employees accept the risks and are conditioned to see them as normal, it’s allowed. And because they are often well-paid, the public does not kick up a fuss about it.
What FIFPRO are looking for is an acknowledgement that this is an issue, so that unilateral action can be taken. There are two ways this can feasibly happen: a players’ strike, or another shift in the power dynamics. Something both clubs and players are watching with interest is a court case between former player Lassana Diarra and FIFA. An initial ruling by the European Court of Justice last year found that preventing players from moving to another club could breach EU law. If this is upheld, it could give players much more power in their contract negotiations and ability to change clubs, both of which could allow them to play less and look after their health more.
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No club wants players to get injured, and most have gone to great lengths in recent years to improve their approach to mental health. However, attitudes around physical health are still to ‘grin and bear it’, and have your health risked in a way that would not be permissible in any other industry. Whether or not these changes may be more contingent on players than anyone else, as they look to take things into their own hands.
The conflict at the heart of this is how many footballers will keep taking the risks, and fill the gaps left by those protesting. Until courts or governments step in, the wheel may keep turning—leaving too many injured footballers and ruined careers in its wake. That’s not something anyone deserves, regardless of how much money they make.