Is the Jam-Packed Football Calendar Heading for Disaster?
Can the players, fans, and the value of the football product sustain the unrelenting stuffing of the global football schedule?
Maheta Molango is the CEO of the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), the union for 55,000 current and former professional footballers in England and Wales.
In a recent episode of ‘Business of Sport’, Maheta revealed his biggest concern in football today: fixture congestion. This is not a new discussion, but aside from the implementation of a ‘winter break’ (basically a half term week off), the calendar seems more busy than ever (Newcastle and Liverpool played 8 games in 24 days over the Christmas period!).
Why is this? Let’s take a look at the reasons behind rights holders and federations force feeding the football calendar, alongside the impact it has on the sport and its increasingly valuable talent.
We continue to venture into a new football world - a world where abundance reigns supreme. There has never been more games, there has never been more money. Are these mutually exclusive?
In the 2021/22 season, Premier League clubs’ revenue increased by 12% to an all-time high of £5.5 billion. Commercial sponsorships and broadcasting revenue together contributed 86% of this revenue. If we combine the Big 5 Leagues, the total revenue comes out to £17.2 billion, with broadcasting and commercial revenue contributing the majority share.
In the same year, UEFA generated £4 billion, with broadcasting rights contributing over £3.4 billion. FIFA amassed a broadcast revenue of £2.96 billion, in large part thanks to the Qatar World Cup.
This is big money, and to make sure that sponsorship and media revenue keeps coming in, UEFA and FIFA appear to have come up with a master plan: More Games!
Both federations are invested in increasing their global reach:
From 2024, the Champions League will have 8 group games instead of 6.
The FIFA Club World Cup is increasing from 7 to 32 teams in 2025, adding another 7 games to clubs’ schedules.
The Euros have already increased the number of teams from 16 to 24.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will have 48 teams instead of 32 (a 50% increase) and will have 104 matches compared to 64.
Source: Sky Sports Football
The number of fixtures in the Premier League and other domestic football calendars is relatively consistent. There are a few changes that could be made in English football to reduce fixture congestion: removing FA Cup replays or (whisper it) the League Cup as a whole. But that wouldn’t address the primary issue: the expansion of FIFA and UEFA competitions.
“Look at it in isolation. It makes sense for UEFA in isolation, makes sense for Premier League in isolation, makes sense for FIFA, but when you cross over, it doesn't make sense. So we need to be able to establish a calendar first in terms of maximum number of games and maximum rest.”
Maheta Molango on ‘Business of Sport’
The football calendar needs to be addressed as a collective to protect the players and the quality of the product. FIFA did not consult domestic leagues on its plan to expand the Club World Cup, despite the significant impact these decisions have on national tournaments. The discussion with Maheta Molango highlighted a number of impacts associated with an unsustainable number of matches:
Impact on player health and welfare
Injuries. The total number of player injuries across all of Europe’s top five men’s leagues was 3,985 over the course of the 2022/23 season.
In Spain, Real Madrid accrued the highest injury count (72), double that of rivals Barcelona (36). The Premier League recorded the second highest number of injuries across Europe, after the Bundesliga, with 946 injuries at an average of 47 per side. Player injuries in the EPL are up by 30% compared to last season while hamstring injuries are up an incredible 96% from last season.
Source: Howden, Football Injury Index 2022
With UEFA and FIFA extending their competitions well into the summer, player’s barely get any time off. The PFA and FIFPRO rules dictate a mandatory 3-week rest period between seasons. In addition to these 3 weeks, medical experts believe that players need another 3 weeks of pre-season to prepare for competitive matches again.
Manchester United and France centre back Raphael Varane retired from international football due to a ‘suffocating and overloaded’ schedule. More players will have to make decisions like this when their mental and physical health continues to be disregarded by the federations and governing bodies that rely on them to sell their rights.
“The players have not realised they have the power because the product is them, the product is them. So if they say, listen, you know what, we will not play, they can do whatever they want, we will not play is the end of the product.”
Maheta Molango on ‘Business of Sport’
As clubs can’t prevent players going on international duty under FIFA laws, the players are the ones that have the power to influence policy. And if the top players don’t play in certain competitions, the value of ‘football: the product’ decreases.
Depreciation of the product
Is this ‘more games = more revenue’ equation true? Not entirely.
Let’s look at the NFL. Each team in the NFL plays 17 games in a year. Compare this to Manchester City, who last season played 73 games across all competitions.
Even with this comparatively small number of games played, the NFL generates $10 billion a season in revenue from broadcasting rights alone. That’s $5 billion more than UEFA and the Premier League.
Data suggests that fan fatigue is at an all-time high; fans can barely keep up. And if the fans can’t keep up, the audience diminishes. And if the audience drops off, the value of the product declines. The knock on effect is real.
While there are differences between football and the NFL that means we can’t compare these two sporting institutions and how they commercialise holistically, the NFL business model does indicate that sometimes less is more; the more exclusive something is, the more it is valued by the market. By continuing to expand the game at every possible opportunity, does the value of football ‘the product’ diminish?
Creating Opportunity
Taking a different view, the congested calendar can also create opportunity. The more games a club plays, the more opportunities a club has to give squad players a chance.
FC Barcelona is a prime example. It is not a stretch to suggest the rise of Pedri, Gavi, Balde and co. was partly due to the number of fixtures established senior players had to play. Additional games gave youth a chance, a chance they may not have had with fewer matches.
On an earlier ‘Business of Sport’ episode, Chris Smalling told the story of how Fulham’s unexpected run to the Europa League final in 2010 led to increased first team opportunities and helped facilitate his move to Manchester United.
“My break came because that year we had Roy Hodgson as manager. We pretty much play the same 13 players. They were always fit. Hangeland and Hughes were the centre backs all the time and they were fit and the team did really well. They qualified for Europa League. So the next year I knew we'd have Europa League and that's when I got my chance because we were playing Thursdays and Sundays”
Chris Smalling on ‘Business of Sport’
But this asks another key question. What do fans pay to see? The athlete or the club? The globalisation of football has created international icons of the top players. It is now just as feasible that part of the audience tunes in to watch Erling Haaland as much as they do to follow Manchester City.
Sporting Kansas City moved their match against Messi’s Inter Miami from their 18,000 seater stadium to the Chiefs 76,000 seater Arrowhead Stadium to accommodate (and take advantage of) the inevitable Messi-mania.
Purists may not like to recognise this, but if the key players that sell tickets and inflate media rights don’t play, does the interest remain? And then we’re back to the deprecation of product discussion.
So looking at these factors as one, the obvious answer is to sit everyone down and thrash out a reasonable and balanced fixture schedule that quenches the thirst of the fan, gives the media the value they crave, and sends the players off to the spa every other month.
Appreciating that is fanciful, agree to a calendar that incorporates the interests of all as much as possible. But someone will eventually have to compromise…
If this doesn’t happen, the players will be forced to act, and based on our conversation with Maheta Molango, the PFA will be right behind them, ready to offer the required support to do just that.
COMING UP…
Next week on the ‘Business of Sport’ pod we welcome an Olympic Legend:
Born in Sheffield in 1986
3 time world champion and Olympic gold & silver medallist
Was appointed a Dame in the 2017 New Years Honours list
Listen to the full episode with Maheta on Spotify, Apple and YouTube
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