Introduction to the FIFPro Report
A FIFPro report about the 2024-25 football season shows concerns about the number of soccer players in the men’s game. The most important findings cover several concerns, perhaps above all, in particular the overload of the calendars and the extreme heat.
Overload of the Calendars
The 32-team club world championship put a lot of strain on the players, with some like Achraf Hakimi taking their seasons over a year. The report states that Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester City and Bayern Munich had greatly shortened their outside of the season for the current campaign due to the competition. Without improved security and better charging management, there is concern that the participation of many players in the 2026 World Cup is at risk.
The FIFPRO report showed that the consensus of medical experts consists in the fact that the competitive regulations between the seasons include at least four weeks and at least two days between the appearance in order to enable adequate recreation, and that the increased travel load in the planning of devices should be taken into account. "You have the perfect storm that you don’t treat a person," said FIFPRO consultant Dr. Darren Burgess. "They have players who play a large number of games, followed by less than the recommended days outside the season and the days in the pre-season, followed by a large number of games," he said. "The cycle repeats itself again and again." "This leads to an injury in the worst case and, in the best case, the capacity reduces to perform," he said.
Heat Concerns
One of the other main concerns in the report was Heat, which was emphasized for the first time five years after the annual reports were submitted. "This year, with the effects of the World Cup and the path to the World Cup in the USA, it was necessary to include them in the report this year," said FIFPRO director of politics and strategic relationships, Alexander Bielefeld. "The risk of the health of the players is clearly increasing," he added.
Using the World Cup as a case study, the report showed that four games in the USA achieved a temperature of over 28 degrees Celsius (82b f), which meant that they had to be canceled according to FIFPRO guidelines. In a further 17 games there were temperatures close to the cancellation threshold. "This is a problem that affects many different play markets in the context of a warming planet," says the report. "In this regard, the World Club Championship was a wake-up call and a bad example of how to deal with the circumstances properly." Once Borussia Dortmund left her substitutes inside because the temperatures were too high outside.
"The harder and longer athletes play, the greater their heat exposure and increases the risk of tiredness and difficulty to heat and long -term diseases," Manal Azzi, an expert in health and security for international work organization for international work organization, told FIFPRO. According to the FIFPro report, six of the 16 cities for the world championship conditions are classified as a "extreme risk" for heat-related diseases, which is a problem for players and fans. With 48 teams in three countries with three different climate zones, an increased fatigue is a serious risk.
What Happens Next
Since FIFPRO is currently legal steps against FIFA for the overloaded nature of the calendar and the voices of the play group, which are even louder, there is hope that material changes are on the move. The union of players believes that years of accumulated data give their arguments more weight and that there is a real sense in the game that nobody denies that load management is a problem. "There is a significant shift in discourse," said Alexander Bielefeld. "That is not enough. We need urgent measures, but we are in a completely different room than two to three years ago." "We will always fight for the best possible result in this topic and many other topics," said Alexander Phillips, General Secretary of Fifpro. "But they are all on the same problem," he said, "that is that the system doesn’t work"
In the meantime, the schedule of football turns and the World Cup is large. With 48 teams and 104 games, it will be the largest edition of the competition ever. Fans can only hope that the best players in the world will be fit and healthy enough next summer to take part.
