January 21 – With increasing demands placed on football’s elite players, FIFA president Gianni Infantino has vowed player welfare will be a top priority as the organisation reshapes the international fixture schedule.
FIFA’s proposal for a biennial World Cup has drawn widespread criticism amid concerns over burn-out and Infantino discussed the issue Thursday after accepting an invitation from England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) to meet leading players and union representatives.
The session included PFA chief executive Maheta Molango and FIFA chief of global football development Arsene Wenger who is driving the biennial proposal. A number of players were also in attendance.
“At the end of the day what we want for men’s and women’s football is that the players can perform at their best, not only in one competition but in all the competitions they have to play,” said Infantino afterwards.
“The women and the men are facing the same issue – go back and forth, back and forth and play a competition, a finals tournament and then go back and immediately after you go somewhere in another part of the world. We need to bring some more coordination in the international match calendar.”
Infantino made it clear that switching to a World Cup every two years was not the main issue discussed at the Manchester meeting.
“There are different views, but we didn’t seek any sort of opinion in terms of are you in favour, are you against. It was not the main topic.”
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