The Fixture Conundrum: How Schedule Congestion is Running Players Into the Ground

By
Lyle-Anthony Golding
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The increased amount of tournaments and competitions throughout the football calendar has led to more discussions about player health and safety. This season alone, we’ve seen a handful of injuries to players who have logged exorbitant minutes over the past year. The more you look at it, the more it’s clear that the overly congested football schedule isn’t accounting for enough recovery time for players. 

Last month, Manchester City star and 2024 Ballon d’Or finalist Rodri said in a press conference that professional footballers were heavily contemplating strike action due to the seemingly unending increase in the number of games they are asked to play each year.

A week after he made this statement, in a cruel twist of irony, Rodri would injure his ACL in a match against Arsenal. It required season-ending surgery.

“Someone has to take care of us,” Rodri said in the press conference. “Not everything is money or marketing, it’s the quality of the show.”

Some were sympathetic to Rodri’s sentiments, but a particularly loud group of fans online had a more disappointing response, to say the least. The main reply echoed across various social media platforms was something along the lines of, “If you’re paid that much, don’t complain.” But with the abundance of evidence that fixture congestion is causing at best a dip in performance levels and at worst, an increase in serious long-term injuries, you’d think the players would receive a bit more compassion.

Raphael Varane is another example of what overloading can do to professionals. His retirement from football last month at only 31 after another serious knee injury, was just a year on from his retirement from international football. When he signed off for France, his message given to everyone then is even more impactful today.

“The very highest level is like a washing machine,” Varane said. “You play all the time and you never stop. Right now, I feel like I’m suffocating and that the player is gobbling up the man.”

Just a few weeks after Rodri went down with his injury, his international teammate and Champions League winner Dani Carvajal left the pitch in tears with a knee injury of his own against Villarreal. While many may point to this being an impact injury rather than non-contact like Rodri’s, the fact that the players who have logged the most mileage seem more susceptible to long-term absences is no coincidence.

Both Rodri and Carvajal had grueling schedules over the past calendar year, making deep tournament runs with both Spain and their respective domestic clubs, Manchester City and Real Madrid.

In Carvajal’s case, he won both the Champions League and EURO 2024, and there’s a strong argument to be made that he wasn’t given adequate rest throughout his jam-packed year in which he battled at the most grueling and taxing level.

Carvajal’s injury came just months after he said, “It’s an unfeasible calendar – we can’t keep up the level by playing every three days.”

Another coincidence?

FIFPro’s latest workload report shows damning results that a shocking 54% of players experienced excessive or high workload demands in the 2023-24 season, with 31% having over 55 inclusions in matchday squads. Coupled with the fact that we are seeing consistent competition expansion with very few health and safety measures implemented for the players, the signs are worrying for the younger generation.

Jude Bellingham only just returned for Real Madrid after a muscle injury kept him out for nearly a month. When looking at total minutes played before turning 21, he’s logged more than Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, and David Beckham (you could combine the last three and still have less minutes than Bellingham).

Rooney is still one of the biggest “what ifs” in football, and many consider him the first major example of a player burning out far too early due to an overload of games. Bellingham is currently on track to put up higher appearance numbers in significantly less time.

Barcelona star Pedri has already missed over a year total through various injuries, yet always seems to be first on call for Spain and Barcelona at the age of 21. Even with this time spent on the sidelines, to this point in his career, he has still logged more minutes than his compatriot Xavi did at the same age. There were even memes about his incredibly busy 2021, in which he played in both the EUROs and Olympics for Spain, in addition to a full season with Barcelona.

Yes, we can say football has changed and players consistently break through at younger ages than before, but wouldn’t that mean that the governing bodies should make adjustments that better protect players, rather than giving them more games to play?

There is a real risk of overworking the best and brightest players in world football to the point of no return.

Going Forward

With not only the new UEFA Champions League, Europa, and Conference Leagues being extended, but also the new Club World Cup finals next year in the United States, footballers are dancing an unprecedented number of matches at the highest level.

Just this past summer, legal action was launched against FIFA by the respective professional player associations of England, Italy, and France. Their stance that the rights of players are being violated by the new Club World Cup was supported by the global footballers union FIFPro.

It remains to be seen what exactly the outcome may be, but the swelling disapproval and anger at the governing bodies for football will soon surpass the boiling point.

Ange Postecoglu, Pep Guardiola, and Mikel Arteta are among some of the biggest managers in the world, and they all have echoed the sentiments of the players and their unions: It’s far too much.

Across all competitions for club and country in the 2023-24 season, Rodri featured in 61 matches, and logged nearly 5,300 minutes. That’s far, far too much. The fixture congestion issue shows zero signs of slowing down, and unfortunately, I believe this means we’ll be seeing more players pull out of international breaks, see dips in performances, and worst of all, suffer serious physical and mental harm in the long term.

Any worker deserves to operate under healthy and manageable conditions, and footballers are no different.

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