BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A newly published report from Swiss-based consultancy CIES Football Observatory has revealed that most footballers are "playing the same amount of minutes" as they were before amid the controversy about FIFA Club World Cup and congested match calendar.

REPORT: PLAYER WORKLOAD NO INCREASE

According to the report of match calendar and player workload, which was conducted after analyzing thousands of players from 40 top football leagues across five continental confederations from 2012/13 to 2023/2024 season, every surveyed footballer played 22.7 matches per season on average over the last 12 years, with a peak at 24.4 matches in 2023/24 season.

Although the number of matches increased in recent two years, the average number of minutes played per player per season remained stable, thanks to the introduction of the five substitutions rule in 2020 and the expansion of squad sizes, which allowed for greater player rotation.

Saying that "the vast majority of players are not playing a high volume of matches", the report revealed that only 0.31 percent of footballers surveyed played more than 60 matches in all competitions combined per season, while 21.5 percent of players participated in ten matches or fewer.

The report also notified that clubs are not playing more matches per season, countering the popular belief that the match calendar is becoming more and more crowded for the top clubs.

Between 2012 and 2024, the average number of fixtures per club and season remained stable at over 40, and only about five percent of clubs play 60 or more games per season.

For UEFA Champions League teams, they played 50.8 matches per season in 2023/24 on average, less than they were in 2002/03 season with the average of 55.2 season.

In addition, the report said that national leagues organized 82.2 percent of all matches played by footballers from the 40 leagues surveyed. The second-largest organizer, national associations, accounted for 10.2% of matches, while confederations come third with 6.7%, ahead of FIFA with 0.9%.

The report also projected that footballers will play the same amount of minutes but 1.4 percent more matches on average over the next four years (2024 to 2028) compared to the previous four years.

CONTROVERSY ON FIFA CLUB WORLD CUP

Players' workload has been a controversy for years, and it has become a hot topic especially after FIFA introduced the revamped 32-team Club World Cup, whose first edition will take place in the United States in 2025.

Global players' union FIFPRO's European arm, alongside with European leagues, who is an organization representing more than one thousand clubs from 33 countries around Europe, said on Tuesday that they are filing a complaint to the European Commission about how FIFA adds competitions to congested fixture schedules.

In the statement, they said that FIFA's conduct "harmed the economic interests of national leagues and the welfare of players", adding that "the international match calendar is now beyond saturation and has become unsustainable for national leagues and a risk for the health of players."

In response, FIFA said that "the current calendar was unanimously approved by the FIFA Council, which is composed of representatives from all continents, including Europe, following a comprehensive and inclusive consultation, which included FIFPRO and league organizations."

"Some leagues in Europe are acting with commercial self-interest, hypocrisy, and without consideration to everyone else in the world," FIFA added. Enditem

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