Overworked and Overplayed?

In 2024, Argentine football manager, Marcelo Bielsa stated in an interview “I am certain that football is in a process of decline … the business only cares about how many people watch it”.

In the past 10 years, the number of football games played has increased. If this isn’t stopped, football as a sport might break down forever.

The player’s perspective

In 2024, in a press conference, Manchester City FC star Rodrigo Hernández stated that, “Between 40 and 50 per season is the number of games in which a player can perform to the highest level.” , today premier league players are playing upwards of 60 games a season.

Rodrigo speaks with the voice of many players; He says that it is incredibly challenging to keep up a proficient level of fitness with the number of games per season being so high. This is particularly an issue for teams competing in extra domestic cups and other competitions.

Ronaldinho, a former Brazilian footballer born in 1980 was 24 years old by the time he had played 163 games for club and country. Compare that to his compatriot Vinicius Junior, born in the year 2000, who played 369 games by 24.

You can see this in other sports, for example, in F1, despite cancelled races due to COVID19, this decade is still set to hold the record for most races. If an F1 driver travelled to every race in 2023, they would have travelled close to 80,000 miles in the air. In 2024 F1 driver Max Verstappen expressed his concern over the impact of long-haul flights on drivers. Begging the question, does this only impact football? — In short, no, it’s not only footballers who are being overworked, but all sportspeople, and this must be changed.

The managers’ perspective

In an interview in 2024 Pep Guardiola, head coach of Manchester City FC, stated, “There are players who can play every three days; there are some that can’t.”

He also expresses his concerns about players’ mental health. He argues that players complain about their stress too. It is a huge pressure to play in front of 70,000 people every couple of days. Footballers also suffer with their own personal challenges. Martin Sordell, for example, a former professional football player, suffered with depression for many years, a mix of the pressure to perform, and constant fatigue, which led to a failed suicide attempt.

Will action be taken?

Without question, sportspeople are the priority.

Drawing it back to the quote at the start of the article, the objective of sport associations is to increase viewership and, as a result, profit. But there is a limit to the extent you can take advantage of players? What’s left of a sport if its top performers continue to burn out? The quality of sport will decrease, arguably leading to fewer people watching and consequently fewer heroes for the next generation to be inspired by.