Over three years, the number of injuries in the top five leagues rose by 37 percent. The workload of the players is growing disproportionately, and FIFA invented a new demanding format for the Club World Cup. Rodri et al. that’s why they’re talking about a strike.
The numbers speak clearly. During the 2023/24 season, there were 4,123 injuries in the English, German, Italian, Spanish and French leagues. Compared to the previous season, this is a four percent increase. And compared to the 2020/21 year, the number is 37 percent higher than the statistics of that time.
This is stated in the report of the insurance company Howden, which has been monitoring these reports for several years. In the past season, in the top five leagues, a total of 18.5 billion crowns were paid for salary payments collected by footballers who were out of the game due to injuries.
The Bundesliga reports the most injuries, the English Premier League registers the highest costs for injured players. Of course, there is a top salary level.
The number of injured players under the age of 21 is increasing, the number of injured knees is increasing. Last season, there were a total of 367 cases in the top five leagues.
In particular, knee joint injuries are very difficult to treat, they send players off the pitch for a long time.
Not even Rodri’s knee could hold
The 20-year-old Spanish super-talent Gavi appeared on Sunday in the Barcelona jersey in the game against Sevilla, having previously spent 349 days on the sidelines, i.e. almost a year.
Similar to him, other players from the famous Barcelona hotbed like Pedri or Ansu Fati recently had to deal with serious injuries. Even at a young age, players face an excessive match load, whether in a club or national team jersey. And their bodies react to that by breaking down, they are more prone to injury.
“There are too many matches. In my opinion, the best soccer players should play around 50 games a year. But the new deadline threatens up to 70 matches, that is absolutely unbearable. I think we are approaching the point where a strike will be necessary,” Rodri, Manchester City’s Spanish star, said a month ago. Shortly afterwards, by coincidence, Rodri also suffered a serious knee injury.
At the same time, the new format of the Champions League includes eight matches in the regular season for each of the participants, instead of six as before. UEFA conjured up two new necessary dates for this in January.
However, the great displeasure of players and European clubs is mainly connected with the upcoming FIFA project. And that is the Club World Cup, which is to be held in the USA in 2025 in a new format. The tournament is to be played from June 15 to July 13 with 32 participants, 12 of which are expected to be from Europe. Namely Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, PSG, Inter Milan, Porto, Benfica, Dortmund, Juventus, Atlético Madrid and Salzburg.
FIFA received an official protest last week. In it, the players’ organization FIFPro, the ECA uniting European league competitions and the Spanish La Liga itself react to the crowded calendar. Their joint protest also mentions the possibility of declaring a strike and boycotting the WC clubs.
“It’s Your Own Blame”
“The players are threatening strikes now, but they have themselves to blame. For many years, together with their agents, they push to constantly increase their own income. To make this possible, ways were sought to increase the income of the clubs. And that led to the organization of a larger number of matches,” stated Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, a former football star, then a member of Bayern Munich’s top management for many years.
The water carriers debated how to solve this huge problem of world football in the future. They also analyzed the situation of Thomas Tuchel, who did not exactly receive a warm reception in England after his inauguration as manager of the national team. And they also devoted themselves to the Czech top competition, in which Miroslav Koubek in the Pilsen substitution in the battle of the strategists, so to speak, greased the bread of his Ostrava colleague Pavel Hapal, Sparta repeated its “Olomouck syndrome” against Liberec, and Slavia played a qualitatively exclusive duel in Jablonec thanks to both sides.
Water carriers
Football Podcast News List. The trio of Jaromír Bosák, Luděk Mádl and Karel Tvaroh every week about Czech and world football. Stories, affairs, important characters on the field and behind the scenes.
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