Global footballers’ union FIFPRO is still waiting for talks with FIFA over match scheduling at the 2026 World Cup after voicing concerns over excessive heat during this summer’s Club World Cup in the United States.
FIFPRO has published a 51-page report titled “Overworked and Under-Protected — The Player Health and Performance Impact” covering the 2024-25 season, focusing on the impact of workload, rest and the effects of playing the month-long Club World Cup in June and July.
The study showed that Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Manchester City and eventual Club World Cup winners Chelsea all had less than the recommended 28-day summer rest period — Chelsea and Madrid had just 20 days each — while PSG had just seven days of pre-season re-training, despite 28 days being the recommended minimum.
With several games at the Club World Cup delayed or impacted by excessive heat or severe weather conditions, FIFPRO called on FIFA to reconsider scheduled kick-off times and venues for games at next summer’s 48-team World Cup in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
But FIFPRO general secretary Alex Phillips said that the players’ organisation is still waiting for FIFA to schedule talks to address the issue.
“We have informal discussions [with FIFA] on a regular basis on different levels, technical level, be that medical or any other department,” Phillips told reporters. “But nothing major or specific with regards to the World Cup next year.
“We have multiple concerns and that’s just one tournament of many and the vast majority of players around the world, their bread and butter is national leagues and national competitions.
“But yes, it is a concern [that talks haven’t happened yet]. So we will proceed as we did with the Club World Cup and provide the science and the data to FIFA well in advance of the tournament.
“We are doing the same with others, not just FIFA. We’re doing the same, for example, with the Women’s Asian Cup which is happening in Australia next March.
“Same principle. Well in advance, we say to them, ‘look, you’ve scheduled matches at 1:00 p.m, you do realise that in Australia they don’t play matches at 1:00 p.m. in March or in the summer?’ to try and help them to either reschedule the matches or if not, at least implement better protocols and mitigating measures as happened in the Club World Cup in the middle of the tournament too late.
“If the governing bodies are not providing relevant statistics and facts with regards to the health of the players, we will do it. It’s our job.”
Phillips’ comments were echoed by Alex Bielefeld, FIFPRO’s director of policy and strategic relations, who said that excessive heat had a direct impact on the players at the Club World Cup.
“The regulations and policies were not up to speed with a warming planet in the match locations,” he said. “We also would see that we had certain problems during the Cup World Cup with scheduling where it didn’t necessarily take into account player performance and player health and safety requirements in terms of extreme heat.
“We had kick-off times in locations in around 12 o’clock that were in extreme heat conditions.
“This is still something that we have to address ahead of the World Cup.
“I think the Club World Cup was probably a wake-up call in this regard, but it was also a bad example in terms of how we have not properly prepared and taking things into consideration and had to improvise ad hoc to actually deal with the circumstances that impacted both player performance and the player experience during the tournament.”
