The general secretary of the global players’ union FIFPro stated on Friday that the top footballers are reluctant to speak out against playing too many games because they fear the impact it might have on their careers.
After FIFPro met with 58 national player unions from around the world to discuss concerns about FIFA’s management of global football, Alex Phillips spoke at a meeting in Amsterdam.
The first 32-team Club World Cup in the United States, which was praised as a huge success by FIFA president Gianni Infantino but criticised by FIFPro for the demands it has placed on players who were already battling a crowded schedule, came less than two weeks after the end of the tournament.
Some of the best players claimed they hadn’t had a rest for “X” of time before the Club World Cup, according to Phillips.
One of them even said, “I’ll only get a rest when I’m injured.” Some people were cynical about speaking up, and some were resigned.
Then, two weeks later, you notice some of the same players recording social media videos saying, “We think the Club World Cup is great,” as a result of their employers’ orders to do it.
Players are unable to speak up in this contradictory circumstance. They are in a vicious position. They are free to speak up, but it may have consequences.
FIFPro cited FIFA’s recent emphasis on the United States’ Club World Cup as an example of the organization ignoring a number of fundamentally more crucial issues that players around the world are facing.
In a statement, FIFPro cited the “overloaded” match schedule, the concern over the Club World Cup, and “ongoing disregard for players’ social rights. It is unacceptable for an organization that claims global leadership.
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Last year, FIFPro Europe complained to the European Commission, alleging that FIFA had violated its policies with regard to the organization’s handling of international match days.
Following FIFA’s decision to hold a meeting on the eve of the most recent Club World Cup final, the union held the summit on Friday.
In an interview with The Athletic, Argentinian president of FIFPro, Sergio Marchi, this week criticized Infantino’s leadership of FIFA and claimed that he was “running an autocracy.”
FIFA responded to FIFPro on Friday by calling for dialogue “with legitimate bodies that put player welfare first” and claiming to have unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the union to come to its meeting in New York on July 12th.
The Zurich-based organization stated that “FIFA is extremely disappointed by the FIFPRO leadership’s increasingly divisive and contradictory tone.”
This strategy “demonstrates that FIFPRO has chosen to pursue a path of public confrontation” in order to protect “their own personal positions and interests” rather than engage in constructive dialogue.
Source: Channels TV
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