by his own peers in England<\/a> as the best player of the league,\u201d Molango said. \u201cThe reality is that, since then, the number of games that he has been available for has dropped. And when he has been available, it has not been the version of Phil Foden that we saw two years ago. Is it just a coincidence? We think that it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n\u201cUnfortunately, he\u2019s one of the victims of this crazy calendar that only makes sense for those who pursue commercial gain. This year, effectively, he has missed out on some of the biggest games because he was not fit. Because he just could not cope with that demand that has been on him for a number of years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foden has played through the past two summers, featuring for England at the Euros in 2024 and for Manchester City at the Club World Cup last year. Palmer also played in those tournaments, for England and Chelsea, and featured in the European Under-21 Championship in the summer of 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very sad we\u2019ve seen only a glimpse of Cole Palmer during this year,\u201d Molango said. \u201cHe has been one of those guys who have gone three consecutive summers without a break.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fifpro\u2019s annual player workload monitoring report shows Arsenal\u2019s Mart\u00edn Zubimendi top of this season\u2019s appearances list for club and country, with 67 so far. Club Brugge players feature second, third and 10th, but the rest of the top 10 is made up of Premier League players, with Declan Rice, Virgil van Dijk, Morgan Rogers and Dominik Szoboszlai on 65 appearances and Sandro Tonali and Cody Gakpo on 64.<\/p>\n
This level of output, Molango says, will lead to decline if sustained over a two- or three-year period. \u201cIt is to the detriment of the show and the detriment of those who should be football heritage,\u201d Molango said. \u201cFor us a guy like Phil Foden or Lamine Yamal or Rodri should be protected. They are the 1% that make us dream and it\u2019s a very, very sad state of affairs if someone like Phil is not on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PFA is lobbying to be given a seat on the Football Association Board to ensure the views of players are represented in the governing body\u2019s decision-making process. Fifpro was given a position on Uefa\u2019s executive committee this week, with its president, David Terrier, attending his first meeting in Istanbul last week, and the PFA wants a similar acknowledgment of the players\u2019 voice in England.<\/p>\n
Many of the biggest issues facing football in the next few years have player welfare at their heart, with the European-centric global calendar under pressure from new competitions and the emergence of nation-state-backed funding from the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
The memorandum of understanding between Fifa, the six confederations, domestic leagues and Fifpro that governs the global calendar expires in 2030 and negotiations over a new deal will begin next year.<\/p>\n
Fifa\u2019s desire to expand the Club World Cup to 48 teams from 2029, as revealed last year<\/a>, will place increased demands on the leading players, as will Saudi Arabia\u2019s staging of the 2034 World Cup, which will have to take place during the European winter and will cause significant disruption to two domestic seasons.<\/p>\nThe PFA wants to ensure that the players have a formal say at FA level when they are determining their position on such important issues. The PFA and FA declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phil Foden and Cole Palmer missed out on this summer\u2019s World Cup because they have been overworked, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-667296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}