Club World Cup left Chelsea with less than two weeks’ pre-season
Winners Chelsea were among the teams hardest hit by participating in the Club World Cup, exposing their players to greater risk of injury, according to a report by footballers’ union Fifpro.
Reaching the final of the revamped competition in the US this summer left Chelsea with just 13 days of pre-season preparations before beginning the current campaign, while runners-up Paris Saint-Germain had just seven days.
Fifpro says the report, compiled with consultancy Football Benchmark, underlines its case for the game to adopt minimum 28-day periods of rest and pre-season training.
“This report gives you the factual evidence of what is happening in football,” said Maheta Molango, chief executive of the Professional Football Association and a Fifpro director.
“Players are either getting injured or not being able to perform at their best because they are pushed to their limit.”
Chelsea have seen several first-team stars suffer muscle injuries in the first few weeks of the season, including England’s Cole Palmer and Levi Colwill – the latter requiring surgery on a serious knee ligament problem.
“If you don’t have enough off-season, you don’t give your body enough time mentally and physically to freshen up,” said former Liverpool and Arsenal medic Darren Burgess, a Fifpro advisor.
“Plus, not having 28 days as a minimum of pre-season prevents players doing rigorous preparation for the season ahead. It leads at worst to injury, and at best reduced capacity to perform.
“In other sports, the priority has been placed on player performance and player wellbeing, and the off-season break is a substantial part of that.”
Chelsea’s Enzo travelled 150,000 km
The report, titled Overworked and Underprotected: The Player Health and Performance Impact, also highlights the burden of expanding international tournaments and travel.
It found that Chelsea and Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez accumulated 195 hours of travel during 29 journeys spanning more than 149,000 km last season.
Only 14 per cent of players at last year’s European Championship had 28 days’ off-season and just 15 per cent had 28 days’ pre-season.
It comes amid growing concern over player workload following the expansion of the World Cup, Club World Cup and Champions League.
Last week Fifa was asked to consider increasing the number of teams at men’s World Cups from 48 teams to 64 for 2030.
“As players it’s vitally important that we have the recovery period to allow the body to adapt and go again,” said Nottingham Forest striker Chris Wood, who sits on Fifpro’s player council.
“We need to make sure that we are looking after our body in the long term. It’s key we look at the minimum rest process and especially the pre-season.”