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New York Times
2 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Why are football's player unions so powerless compared with U.S. sports?
FIFA president Gianni Infantino spent much of the summer strolling around the U.S. at the Club World Cup, usually either following President Donald Trump or being followed by a group of football legends ready to declare how brilliant his latest idea is. But as players wilted in the heat and games were delayed by extreme weather conditions, some were keen to offer an alternative view. Advertisement 'What was presented as a global festival of football,' said a statement by Sergio Marchi, the president of global players' union FIFPro, 'was nothing more than a fiction staged by FIFA, driven by its president, without dialogue, without sensitivity and without respect for those who sustain the game with their daily efforts.' Punchy. Marchi went on to refer to the tournament as a 'grandiloquent staging that inevitably recalls the 'bread and circuses' of Nero's Rome' and said the 'inequality, precariousness and lack of protection of the real protagonists deepens'. The language may have been a little florid, but Marchi's statement served a purpose. This tournament was the latest and perhaps most trumpeted example of something FIFPro has been talking about for years: the crowded international football calendar and the increasing demands being placed on footballers. It's the sort of thing you would expect a players' union to be vocal about, and ideally change. The problem is, their efforts to get the global football authorities to do anything tangible have been frustrated. And not for the first time. Which raises the question: why is it so hard for FIFPro, and other player unions, to gain traction in football? 'FIFA's governance model allows them to do whatever they want,' Alex Phillips, FIFPro's secretary general, tells The Athletic. 'They're a law unto themselves. It's not just FIFA: this happens on a national level, and we see this quite a lot where the federation or the league don't like what the union is saying because they're challenging their power.' A perfect illustration of this came after Marchi's statement and the farcical situation where Infantino held a meeting to discuss the calendar issue, with some representatives from players' unions present, but not FIFPro. Advertisement Apparent union members from Brazil, Spain, Ukraine, Mexico, Switzerland, Ivory Coast, Latvia, Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic were all present instead. FIFPro had been involved in some lower-level discussions about the football calendar, but were not invited to this more high-profile discussion. After that meeting, FIFA announced a consensus had been reached, that players must have at least 72 hours of rest between matches and there should be at least 21 days of rest at the end of each season. Which is fine (even though FIFPro says it should be at least 28 days at the end of each season), but the FIFA press release went on to say these stipulations 'should be managed individually by each club and the respective players'. Why were FIFPro left out of a meeting like this? According to Marchi, the man at the top is the problem. 'The biggest obstacle is the autocracy of the FIFA president, who doesn't listen — he lives in his own world,' Marchi told The Athletic this week. 'He believes that only the big spectacles are the ones that bring importance. And we feel that he's not listening to the voices of all the football players, to the needs of the players. It's great that we have a World Cup, a Club World Cup, or any world championship because it's a wonderful celebration, but that celebration wasn't created by him. It was created by the players and the spectators, the fans. 'He's simply a manager, not the owner of it. But that's not the most important thing. What's important are all the players around the world, and I've clearly told him this — I've said it to his face.' A FIFA statement on Friday read: 'FIFA is extremely disappointed by the increasingly divisive and contradictory tone adopted by FIFPro leadership as this approach clearly shows that, rather than engaging in constructive dialogue, FIFPro has chosen to pursue a path of public confrontation driven by artificial PR battles — which have nothing to do with protecting the welfare of professional players, but rather aim to preserve their own personal positions and interests. Advertisement 'The global football community deserves better. Players deserve better.' The statement discussed the summit, stating they had made 'unsuccessful efforts to bring FIFPro to the table in an environment of non-hostility and respectful, progressive dialogue'. It also said FIFA are looking to introduce measures whereby players and player unions are represented in FIFA's standing committees and the possibility of them participating in FIFA Council meetings when players' matters are being addressed. FIFA sources, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, also said that the world governing body 'made a genuine effort to engage' with Marchi and FIFPro's new leadership when welcoming them to FIFA headquarters in Zurich in January of this year. For anyone used to observing how unions work in American sports, all of this would seem very strange. In America, most sports literally cannot go ahead without a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) being reached, something negotiated between the league and the players' unions. In baseball, there are already strong fears that the 2027 season will be disrupted and the players could go on strike, largely because of anticipated differences between the parties over salary caps in the next CBA negotiations, which have been desired by the clubs for some time but are the ultimate line in the sand for players. The 1994 season was curtailed (the World Series didn't take place) and the start of the 1995 season was delayed because of a dispute involving salary caps, which has echoes in the anticipated issues for 2027. It's happened in other sports, too. The 2004-05 NHL season was cancelled over a similar disagreement related to salary caps, while the start of the 2011-12 NBA season was delayed due to disputes over the sport's CBA. The NFL also suffered a player lockout in 2011 over a variety of issues, although that was confined to the off-season and no actual games were lost. Advertisement The point is that in those cases, the players' unions had the power to bring the whole sport to a halt. In football, those at the top of the sport can afford to ignore them. One of the main reasons for this is those big U.S. sports are closed markets, operating in a single country. There are places other than America for baseball or basketball or hockey, but the elite level is so far above everything else that it's essentially the only place to play. In football, it's very different: a player can go almost anywhere they want, which is broadly a positive, but reduces leverage when it comes to disputes with the governing powers. 'We need to keep in mind that we're in an open market here, unlike the U.S.,' says Maheta Molango, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association in the UK. 'This is the problem we have, in comparison to U.S. sports — multiple stakeholders that all utilise the same assets. By which I mean players — and I use the word assets on purpose because that's how the players are treated. 'You don't have multiple stakeholders in U.S. sports, you just have the leagues. We have many: the leagues, the confederations and then the international bodies. All of them use the same assets.' And in the case of the crammed international calendar, those stakeholders keep adding games and further commitments for the players. So you'll have UEFA adding extra games to the Champions League, or creating a new competition such as the Conference League, while FIFA is conjuring the Club World Cup out of thin air, or adding more teams (and thus more games) to the proper World Cup. Throw in clubs shoehorning pre- and post-season tours into the schedule whenever they can, and it becomes like multiple children adding items on to the Buckaroo! mule, with little care given to anything around them. The unions' job — to do its best to stop the mule from chucking everything up in the air — thus becomes pretty tricky. 'They all have their own calendar, which make sense when you look at them individually, but they don't make any sense when you look at them holistically because they don't talk to each other,' adds Molango. We should make clear that the unions are busy with other things as well. Phillips cites an issue raised by The Athletic recently, about the number of former players going bankrupt, which is something unions help with, along with other post-career services. When a player lower down the food chain is in dispute with their club, unions step in there, too. Advertisement But on the biggest issue of the day, the international calendar, the unions have comparatively little leverage. And perhaps the biggest single reason is that wide-scale industrial action is incredibly difficult. Industrial action from players has been mentioned in passing, as vague threats around certain issues. In September 2024, Rodri said that strikes were 'close' in protest against the overwhelming international calendar, and that players will have 'no other option' if more games keep being added. That was particularly notable because he was speaking a few days before he was ruled out for the remainder of the season after damaging ligaments in his knee: it can't be definitively proven that this was a consequence of him playing 67 games for club and country over the preceding year, but such a workload can't have helped. But no large-scale, international strikes have materialised, partly because it's incredibly difficult. You have to negotiate the different labour laws in different countries, for a start. That's enough to give any lawyer a headache. Getting enough players to align behind an individual issue is tough, and you need either a massive weight of numbers or some high-profile players to sign up to the cause in order to make the relevant authority sit up. Will anyone in the latter group be willing to risk their own positions, risk their own money, essentially, for something that might not really impact them? The scale of the game is another problem. It's possible to take industrial action on individual, national levels — Colombian players, for example, voted to strike earlier this year — but on an international scale, which is the sort of level that you would need to really make FIFA jump, is impractical. On a technical level, FIFPro also can't organise a strike. 'We don't have players as members,' says Phillips, 'so we can't call players and say go on strike because our members are national player unions and national player associations.' In any case, conversations with those involved in the unions suggest there really isn't the appetite to treat strikes as anything other than a final, final step. 'No worker wants to stop working and not get paid,' says Phillips, 'so it's a final resort when negotiations fail.' Advertisement There perhaps lies one area where the unions could be doing more. Conversations with players past and present, kept anonymous to allow them to protect relationships, suggested that most weren't unhappy with the work their unions did, but felt they could be more proactive, more confrontational, even, with the authorities. Still, the impetus doesn't have to come from the unions. 'It's no longer the unions calling for potential strikes; it's the players themselves,' says Molango. 'The number of issues that could lead to strikes are limited, however those are issues that are so easy for players to feel the consequences of that you shouldn't discount anything. When you've had players who have suffered an ACL or have mental wellbeing issues because they have played too much, it's no longer you convincing them of the need for action. It's them saying we need to protect ourselves.' Marchi, who, as we've established, is not shy about talking a good game, will perhaps help the perception that the unions are too soft. But ultimately influence, without resorting to strike action, is what the unions are there for — and what FIFPro is looking for. 'We have a good relationship with FIFA on an operational level in most departments, but we don't have any decision-making power,' says Phillips. 'And that's what we're fighting for — to have a say at the top table, on issues that directly affect players' rights. To have a veto so that we would negotiate those rights, as happens on a national level, together with the clubs. 'We need a change in the decision-making process, and U.S. sports are way ahead of us on that because the players have an equal say on the big issues that affect professional players.' Will they get that? It's hard to see it happening any time soon.
Free Malaysia Today
a day ago
- Sport
- Free Malaysia Today
Top footballers afraid to speak out against playing too many games, says FIFPro chief
Fifa hailed the US Club World Cup, but FIFPro warned it worsens player fatigue amid an already congested calendar. (EPA Images pic) AMSTERDAM : Top footballers are afraid to speak out against playing too many matches for fear of the impact it could have on their careers, the secretary-general of global players' union FIFPro said on Friday. Alex Phillips was speaking after FIFPro held a meeting in Amsterdam with 58 national player unions from around the world to discuss concerns over the way the sport's world governing body Fifa is managing global football. The meeting came less than two weeks after the end of the first 32-team Club World Cup in the US, a tournament hailed as a huge success by Fifa president Gianni Infantino but criticised by FIFPro for the demands it has placed on players already faced with a crowded schedule. 'Before the Club World Cup, I was speaking to some of the top stars, and they were saying they hadn't had a rest for 'X' amount of time,' Phillips said. 'One of them even said, 'I'll only get a rest when I get injured.'. Others were resigned actually, and cynical about speaking up. 'Then you see some of the same players two weeks later having to record social media videos saying, 'We think the Club World Cup is great,' because their employers are telling them to do it. 'You have this contradictory situation where players can't speak up. They are in an invidious position. They can speak up but it might have consequences.' FIFPro said that Fifa's recent focus on the Club World Cup in the US was an example of the body ignoring many fundamentally more important issues facing players around the world. 'It is unacceptable for an organisation that claims global leadership to turn a blind eye to the basic needs of the players,' FIFPro said in a statement, notably citing the 'overloaded' match calendar, heat concerns at the Club World Cup and an 'ongoing disregard for players' social rights'. FIFPro Europe filed a complaint with the European Commission last year accusing Fifa of abusing its position with regard to its handling of the international match calendar. The summit hosted by the union on Friday came after it was left out of a meeting held by Fifa on the eve of the recent Club World Cup final. Sergio Marchi, the Argentinian president of FIFPro, this week slammed Infantino's leadership of Fifa and accused him of running an 'autocracy' in an interview with The Athletic. Fifa hit back at FIFPro in a statement on Friday as it called for dialogue 'with legitimate bodies that put player welfare first' and said it had tried unsuccessfully to get the union to attend its meeting in New York on July 12. 'Fifa is extremely disappointed by the increasingly divisive and contradictory tone adopted by FIFPro leadership,' the Zurich-based organisation said. 'This approach clearly shows that rather than engaging in constructive dialogue, FIFPro has chosen to pursue a path of public confrontation,' which aims to preserve 'their own personal positions and interests'.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
FIFA accuse players' union of 'grandstanding' and 'blackmail' in forceful defence of Club World Cup - after claims Gianni Infantino was 'turning a blind eye to players' needs
FIFA has launched a stinging rebuke of FIFPro, world players' union, accusing the organisation of 'grandstanding', 'blackmail' and 'operating in opacity' over their financial accounts. The remarkable statement from the sport's top governing body indicted FIFPro for its 'series of personal and disrespectful attacks' and claimed its criticisms of FIFA suggest their leadership 'does not really care about the players'. It marks a deterioration in relations between the two bodies that have been at odds amid the ever increasing football calendar and issues over player welfare. 'FIFPRO has chosen to pursue a path of public confrontation driven by artificial PR battles - which have nothing to do with protecting the welfare of professional players but rather aim to preserve their own personal positions and interests,' said a FIFA spokesman on Friday evening. 'The global football community deserves better. Players deserve better.' FIFA's lambast of the organisation which represents 66,000 men's and women's players around the world, followed claims by Alex Phillips, the general secretary of FIFPro, that stars are worried about potential backlash from clubs and governing bodies. FIFPro believes that FIFA has adopted an 'autocratic' approach to its governance under president Gianni Infantino and accused the body of ignoring players' needs. 'It is unacceptable for an organisation that claims global leadership to turn a blind eye to the basic needs of the players,' said FIFPro following a meeting of 58 player unions in Amsterdam on Friday. 'One clear example of this disconnect was the recent Club World Cup, celebrated by president Infantino despite being held under conditions that were extreme and inappropriate for any human being, demonstrating a troubling insensitivity to human rights, even when it concerns elite athletes.' Players have raised concerns about their lack of rest, caused by the number of matches they are required to play, which has only increased with the introduction of the revamped Club World Cup this summer. Chelsea were crowned winners of the tournament on July 13 after beating Paris Saint-Germain in a final which took place just 35 days before the start of their Premier League campaign. Ahead of the final of the competition, FIFA held a meeting to address concerns over player welfare and a minimum three-week off-season break was agreed. However, it is understood than no FIFPro representatives were invited and it has therefore been seen as a charade by the organisation. Though, FIFA insist that the measures agreed at the gathering, which also included a mandatory minimum 72 hours of rest between matches, prove their seriousness to address concerns and 'go beyond what FIFPRO has been pretending to be asking for'. 'Instead of welcoming these unprecedented announcements that benefit players all around the world, FIFPRO has responded with a series of personal and disrespectful attacks,' A FIFA spokesman continued. 'This approach reveals a lot about FIFPRO priorities. It suggests that their leadership does not really care about the players, but rather about internal political fights and their image. 'FIFA's proposed reforms are about impacting genuine change to support players and are far more important than preserving FIFPRO's perceived image. 'FIFPRO, regrettably, has consistently refused to engage constructively in these efforts. Instead of contributing meaningfully, they have opted for theatrical denunciations, prioritising media headlines over measurable progress for the players they claim to represent.' Earlier this month, FIFPro president Sergio Marchi accused FIFA of choosing to 'continue increasing its income at the expense of the players' bodies and health', likened its approach to the 'bread and circuses' tactics used by Emperor Nero in ancient Rome and warned there could be no repeat of playing matches in such extreme heat at next summer's World Cup, which is being co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico. On Friday, FIFA cited 'the introduction of five substitutions' and 'concussion substitutes' among other 'wide-ranging measures' it claims has better supported players, claiming these to be more substantive that anything achieved by FIFPro. 'These are not vague promises or grandstanding but are real and tangible actions,' added the FIFA spokesman. 'As FIFPRO is interested in addressing matters such as good governance, maybe they would want to consider publishing their own statutes and releasing transparent annual accounts, to ensure that what is being preached is also being practiced. 'Let us be clear: you cannot preach transparency while operating in opacity. The reality is this: FIFA remains firmly committed to placing players at the core of football's future, not just in words, but through concrete regulation and reform. 'FIFA invites all genuine representatives of players to join us in that work - not by attacking from the sidelines, but by participating in transparent, solution-focused dialogue. 'Therefore, FIFA invites FIFPRO to return to the negotiating table, once they have stopped their blackmail and withdrawn their complaints, and once they have published their statutes, their full financial reports (including all their sources of income, the detailed intellectual property rights of the players they claim to own, and the funding one of their regional divisions receives from some football organisations), and the full list of individual members they claim to represent.'
Express Tribune
2 days ago
- Sport
- Express Tribune
'Footballers afraid to speak out against hectic schedule'
Top footballers are afraid to speak out against playing too many matches for fear of the impact it could have on their careers, the general secretary of global players' union FIFPro said on Friday. Alex Phillips was speaking after FIFPro held a meeting in Amsterdam with 58 national player unions from around the world to discuss concerns over the way the sport's world governing body FIFA is managing global football. The meeting came less than two weeks after the end of the first 32-team Club World Cup in the United States, a tournament hailed as a huge success by FIFA president Gianni Infantino but criticised by FIFPro for the demands it has placed on players already faced with a crowded schedule. "Before the Club World Cup, I was speaking to some of the top stars and they were saying they hadn't had a rest for 'X' amount of time," Phillips said. "One of them even said, 'I'll only get a rest when I get injured'. Others were resigned actually, and cynical about speaking up. "Then you see some of the same players two weeks later having to record social media videos saying 'We think the Club World Cup is great,' because their employers are telling them to do it. "You have this contradictory situation where players can't speak up. They are in an invidious position. They can speak up but it might have consequences." FIFPro said that FIFA's recent focus on the Club World Cup in the United States was an example of the body ignoring many fundamentally more important issues facing players around the world. "It is unacceptable for an organisation that claims global leadership to turn a blind eye to the basic needs of the players," FIFPro said in a statement, notably citing the "overloaded" match calendar, heat concerns at the Club World Cup and an "ongoing disregard for players' social rights". FIFPro Europe filed a complaint to the European Commission last year accusing FIFA of abusing its position with regards to its handling of the international match calendar. The summit hosted by the union on Friday came after it was left out of a meeting held by FIFA on the eve of the recent Club World Cup final. Sergio Marchi, the Argentinian president of FIFPro, this week slammed Infantino's leadership of FIFA and accused him of running an "autocracy" in an interview with The Athletic. FIFA hit back at FIFPro in a statement on Friday as it called for dialogue "with legitimate bodies that put player welfare first" and said it had tried unsuccessfully to get the union to attend its meeting in New York on July 12. AFP
Morocco World
3 days ago
- Sport
- Morocco World
FIFPro Accuses FIFA of Ignoring Player Welfare Amid Match Overload
Rabat – Top footballers are increasingly reluctant to voice concerns over the growing number of matches due to fears of professional repercussions, according to FIFPro, the global players' union. The union raised the alarm following a high-level summit in Amsterdam, which brought together 58 national player unions from around the world. The meeting, held to address growing frustration with FIFA 's management of the global football calendar, came shortly after the conclusion of the expanded 32-team Club World Cup in the United States. While FIFA President Gianni Infantino has hailed the tournament as a major success, FIFPro has criticized it for exacerbating an already overloaded match schedule. Alex Phillips, FIFPro's general secretary, said that some of the sport's top athletes are privately expressing concern but remain publicly silent due to fear of employer backlash. 'Before the Club World Cup, I spoke with leading players who said they hadn't had proper rest for extended periods,' Phillips reported. 'One even told me, 'I'll only get a break when I'm injured.' Many feel pressured to promote tournaments they don't support, creating a contradiction between public statements and private experiences.' FIFPro stated that the growing emphasis on expanding competitions, such as the Club World Cup, reflects FIFA's disregard for pressing player welfare concerns, including scheduling fatigue, extreme weather conditions, and the protection of social rights. In an official statement, FIFPro criticized FIFA for failing to address these issues adequately. 'It is unacceptable for an organization that claims global leadership to turn a blind eye to the basic needs of the players,' the statement read. FIFPro Europe also filed a formal complaint last year with the European Commission, accusing FIFA of abusing its dominant position in relation to the international match calendar. The latest friction follows FIFPro's exclusion from a FIFA-hosted meeting in New York on July 12, held on the eve of the Club World Cup final. The union emphasized that the lack of involvement in such key discussions further signals a growing disconnect between FIFA leadership and player representatives. Sergio Marchi, President of FIFPro and former Argentine footballer, voiced strong criticism of Infantino's leadership in a recent interview with The Athletic, accusing him of running FIFA as an 'autocracy.' FIFA responded on Friday, condemning what it described as an increasingly 'divisive and contradictory tone' from FIFPro's leadership. The Zurich-based body defended its efforts to involve the union, stating that it had invited FIFPro to the July 12 meeting, but that the union declined. 'FIFA is extremely disappointed by FIFPro's decision to pursue public confrontation rather than constructive dialogue,' the organization stated. It added that such actions appear to be driven by the leadership's desire to 'preserve their own personal positions and interests.' Tags: FIFAFIfprofootball players
