As he pushes his plans for a World Cup together, FIFA President Gianni Infantino and FIFA’s head of global football development, former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, met union members players, the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) which represents athletes at all levels of English football.
The meeting came after a number of players wrote a letter to Infantino asking to discuss their workload. Among those present were Frenchman Paul Pogba, Manchester United Spanish midfielder Juan Mata and Manchester City-based England women’s internationals Lucy Bronze and Steph Houghton.
“The players have to be present when it comes to the game, when we talk about the calendar, when we talk about the load, the number of days, the type of competitions we want to organise”, Infantino told a small group of journalists present at a press conference, before continuing: “ Of course, we have to care about the players. We want to protect players. And to really know what their concerns are, we have to talk to them directly. »
He still defends his plan for the World Cup every two years
FIFA is carrying out a revision of the international match calendar which determines the international breaks for the matches of the selections and the qualifiers of the tournaments. It also proposes moving to a World Cup every two years, instead of the current format every four years: a plan which has met with strong opposition in European football.
Nevertheless, Gianni Infantino said that this question had been raised during the discussions without being at the heart of the debate: “ It was more about the international match schedule, how to adapt to international team matches, how to ensure that the matches played for the club and the national team are really meaningful and that the players are put in the best conditions to play the best possible tournament », he specified.
