Game changers

FIFA, world football’s governing body, received yet another proposal for changing a crucial part of the game’s international schedule on May 21. The drift unsurprisingly was towards expansion. The proposal was tabled by the Saudi Arabian federation and suggested that consideration be given to holding both the men’s and women’s World Cup competitions every two years instead of the current four. It received 166 votes in favour and 22 against, upon which FIFA agreed to commission a study to examine the ramifications of the prospective plan.

Great. The last thing world football needs is more games. Because of the pandemic, we will have two European tournaments this year alone: The Euro finals in June-July and the UEFA’s Nations League final in October. In a normal world, unaffected by unforeseeable events like the current pandemic, the international schedule is packed anyway. Qatar will host next year’s men’s World Cup in November. The women’s World Cup will be held in 2023, which will be followed by the next Euro finals in 2024.

Let us separate the schedules for the men’s and women’s games for reasons that are obvious. Both involve the same organisations, of course: Worldwide, FIFA and the continental federations. But the most important actors in the sport, whose well-being ought to be considered as the highest priority, are different sets. The players in other words. An expansion of the World Cup by making it a biennial rather than a quadrennial event will affect the men’s game more, though it will also have a seriously deleterious impact on women footballers. This is because the men’s schedule is at the moment more punishing. Just looking at Europe, as mentioned, male footballers have to play in three events every four years: A World Cup, a Nations Cup and the Euro.

In comparison, the women’s sport in Europe does not have a biennial Nations League. Nor does it have equivalents at the club level yet for the Europa Cup or the newly instituted Europa Conference. In other words, by first focusing on the men’s game in Europe, we are looking at what we might call the worst-case scenario.

Apart from the national competitions, we have the three European competitions, as of the 2021-22 season — the Champions League, Europa League and the infant Europa Conference League. These competitions finish towards the end of May —  the Europa League final was played on May 26 this year, with Manchester United losing to Villarreal in a surreally bad final, settled fittingly only after 11 penalty kicks had been taken by either side. A goalkeeper failing to score his hit ended the spectacle. The elite Champions League final will be played on May 29, today, between two English clubs: Chelsea and Manchester City. The dates are not going to change substantially. One doesn’t know yet how the last game of the Europa Conference League will be scheduled. One presumes it will be some days before the Europa final.

At present, thus, players engaged in European club football get a break from competitive games for something between two and a half and three months every two years. In alternate years, of course, players from European nations have to play the World Cup and the Euro. The Copa America, the tournament for South American countries which now has invitees from North and Central America and Asia as well, has an erratic history, being hosted sometimes in consecutive years (2015, 2016), sometimes with a gap of three years (2016, 2019), sometimes two years (2019, 2021). After this year’s edition, the tournament will be held in 2024.

The point, however, is that it is held at the same time as the World Cup and European competitions — in June-July. The 2022 World Cup in Qatar will be held in November-December as an exception, but will still have ramifications for season scheduling. The African Nations Cup happens during the European season and doesn’t impose an additional burden. All these competitions obviously involve arduous qualification campaigns, which require players to travel significant distances, switch between training regimens, and adjust to playing in different teams in the middle of the season. Playing in vastly different conditions in the space of days requires hazardous adjustments.

On top of these is the most pointless species of “competitive football”, the international friendlies  further disrupt all kinds of regimens. These were supposed to have been eliminated in Europe by the Nations Cup, but appear to be holding their own.

The good news is that was not the first time that the proposal for increasing the frequency of the World Cup was mooted. It had been suggested before but had never really been thought to be a workable proposition. In everyone’s interest — except those of bureaucracies that want to squeeze every possible cent from the game — the regurgitated proposal should be allowed to die a quiet death.