the times | Friday May 27 2022 65
Sport
The global players’ union, Fifpro, is
calling for urgent action to protect
players after it was revealed that Sadio
Mané and Mohamed Salah have trav-
elled 58,000 miles and 53,000 miles
respectively in a jam-packed season
that will extend to 69 matches.
Maheta Molango, the chief executive
of the Professional Footballers’ Asso-
ciation, also warned: “Football is sleep-
walking into a crisis on player welfare.”
Liverpool’s flight to Paris for tomor-
row’s Champions League final is a short
hop compared with many of the jour-
neys undertaken by Mané with Senegal
and Salah with Egypt, and their work-
load is similar to that of other elite
players, according to a report released
yesterday. Real Madrid’s Éder Militão
and Vinícius Júnior each travelled
80,000 miles this season — equivalent
to three times around the world.
When Mané and Salah’s 11-month
season finally ends after next month’s
Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, they
will have played 69 games each this
campaign, including pre-season. Such a
relentless workload meant that more
than 60 per cent of the games played by
the Liverpool pair were in “the critical
zone”. This is when players have fewer
than five days’ rest between matches
and “scientific studies show [they] are
more susceptible to muscle injuries”,
according to Fifpro, which is calling for
longer breaks between games.
Liverpool have exceptional medical
staff and sports scientists, but the work-
load of the modern international player
is concerning the global players’ union.
The union worked with Football
Benchmark, the digital data and
analytics platform, to survey players
and “high-performance coaches” —
including managers, sports scientists
and club doctors — around the world
between October and December 2021.
It also picked out the examples of Luka
Modric and Harry Maguire from the
preceding season as ones that showed
the intensity of the schedule.
Maguire, the Manchester United
centre back, played 19 consecutive
matches from December 20, 2020 to
February 21, 2021 — an “excessive
voice is being “respected in current la-
bour discussions”.
“The health and wellbeing of players
is being jeopardised in the pursuit of
commercial priorities,” Molango said.
“At the beginning of the season, I
visited every Premier League dressing-
room to hear about the issues that
matter. Scheduling and player work-
load was the stand-out concern.
“Players instinctively want to be part
of every game and every competition.
But they have real concerns about their
ability to maintain peak performance.
“At present, we are simply playing too
many games. Congested scheduling
disrupts sleep, breaks training sched-
ules and limits recovery. Over a
sustained period, it results in more inju-
ries and ultimately shortens careers.”
Worryingly, 73.1 per cent of inter-
nationals surveyed said “there is not a
high level of collaboration between
their club and national teams when it
comes to the management of playing
and training loads”.Aston Villa have reached an agreement
to sign the Sevilla defender Diego
Carlos for £26 million.
The 29-year-old was set to travel to
England last night to undergo a medi-
cal and finalise personal terms before
completing his move to Villa Park.
The Brazil centre back signed for
Sevilla in July 2019, making 136 appear-
ances and winning the Europa League
in 2020.
Carlos is Villa’s third signing of the
summer already, after Philippe Coutin-
ho, 29, who will make permanent his
loan move from Barcelona, and the
French midfielder Boubacar Kamara,
22, who signed from Marseille.
Charlotte Duncker, Gary Jacob
her combined five-year stint at City,
winning the WSL in 2016, two FA Cups
and two League Cups. She was named
Fifa best women’s player of the year in
2020.
In a statement, Bronze, who is yet to
announce her new club, said: “It has
been great to spend the last two years
back on home soil. Although it has
come with its trials and tribulations, it
has also come with accomplishments.
“Big thanks to my team-mates for
being there for me. And to our support-
ers: you’re playing such an important
role in pushing the women’s game to the
level we want it to be.”Villa agree £26m deal for centre back Carlos
Steven Gerrard, overseeing his first
summer window in charge at Villa
Park, is pleased with the speed at which
the deals have been agreed and there is
potential for more recruitment before
next season. A left back and a forward
are also on Gerrard’s wish list.
Outgoings are likely, with Villa
willing to listen to offers for a number of
squad players, including the forward
Bertrand Traoré, 26, and the 27-year-
old midfielders Anwar El Ghazi and
Trézéguet.
Gerrard is hoping to have a large
proportion of his squad finalised before
the club go on their pre-season tour to
Australia in the middle of July, as he
looks to improve on this season’s 14th-
placed finish.Meanwhile, Crystal Palace are inter-
ested in signing the goalkeeper Sam
Johnstone, who will leave West Brom-
wich Albion as a free agent next month.
The 29-year-old, who has three
England caps, had hoped for a summer
move to Tottenham Hotspur, but the
London club are expected to sign
Fraser Forster — who has passed a
medical — when his Southampton
contract expires next month.
Palace’s present first-choice ’keeper,
Vicente Guaita, has a deal until 2023
but the 35-year-old has been linked
with a move back to his native Spain.
Leeds United have completed the
signing of Brenden Aaronson, the
21-year-old American midfielder, from
Red Bull Salzburg for £23 million.Former world player of year
Bronze joins City exodus
Charlotte DunckerLucy Bronze will leave Manchester
City when her contract expires at the
end of next month.
The England right back and former
world player of the year returned to the
club for her second spell in 2020 after
three seasons with the French side
Lyon and becomes the fifth high-
profile player to leave the club.
Bronze, 30, was not offered a new
deal by City, and joins Georgia Stanway,
Caroline Weir, Jill Scott and Karen
Bardsley in departing. She made 111
appearances and scored 14 goals overFears for players
as Mané travels
58,000 miles in
69-game season
workload” and “more than three
times” the maximum recommended.
“Harry Maguire did not have the
recommended five days of rest between
them once,” Fifpro said.
From September 30 to December 20,
2020, Modric’s workload was 24 con-
secutive matches — “four times more”
than the maximum recommended,
according to Fifpro. He played six times
for Croatia and 18 for Real Madrid,
“accumulating 1,773 minutes on the
pitch”. Noting that Modric “had 83
hours of rest between games on aver-
age it is perhaps not surprising that he
suffered a muscle injury”, Fifpro said.
“We are athletes, not machines,”
Arturo Vidal (Inter Milan and Chile),
Jonathan David (Lille and Canada) and
Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus and Italy)
write in the report. “Our bodies and our
minds have natural limits. When we
push too hard or rest too little we break.
“The message is clear — players and
coaches are telling us that too many
matches across too many overlapping
competitions are pushing us to our
physical limits. The risk of severe injury
and mental strain is growing fast. Back-
to-back matches depriving players of
proper rest are starting to do real harm.”
The report highlights the workload
of England internationals, including
Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford.
Of Sterling’s 11 seasons, seven have
been made up of 50+ games. Of Rash-
ford’s seven professional seasons, four
have been of 50+ games. More than half
of players (54 per cent) “say they suf-
fered an injury due to schedule over-
load” and 47 per cent were in favour “of
less frequent but longer release peri-
ods”, which would mean internationals
being played in fewer but longer blocks.
The survey revealed 88 per cent of
players polled believed that their career
“may be shortened as a consequence of
match and training overload”, while al-
most 40 per cent felt the “demands of
overload affected their mental health”.
Molango was in Paris yesterday
for talks with Fifpro and the conversa-
tion was very much about standing up
to the governing bodies, Uefa and Fifa,
as well as clubs who are booking more
pre-season tours. Only 22 per cent of
the players surveyed felt that theirHenry Winter Chief Football Writer
Protesting
United fans
told to rally
behind team
Paul HirstManchester United’s chief executive
has urged fans to channel all their
energy into supporting the team at Old
Trafford next season, amid the potent-
ial for more protests against the club’s
owners, the Glazer family.
On the day United announced that
their net debt had risen to £495 million,
the club published the minutes of a fans’
forum, during which Richard Arnold
was questioned by a supporter about
the strong anti-Glazer sentiment
within the fanbase.
Arnold, who replaced Ed Woodward
in February, told the fans that he under-
stood their “concerns and frustration”
but insisted “there is huge commitment
and passion across the club to return to
where we think we belong”.
United’s chief executive hopes that
fans will get behind Erik ten Hag, the
new manager. “Football is a game of
passion and we fully respect the fans’
right to make their feelings known, as
long as this remains legal and peaceful,”
Arnold said. “I would very much hope
that all fans within Old Trafford ap-
proach next season with renewed opti-
mism and confidence as we look for-
ward to a fresh start under Erik ten Hag.
“We have the best fans in the world
and when Old Trafford is at its loudest,
we have a significant advantage. I hope
this unrivalled passion will be used to
support the team and the new manager
as we start this exciting new chapter.”
United’s latest financial results
showed losses of £21.8 million for the
period from January 1 to March 3. The
Glazer family, who bought the club in
2005, are set to receive about £7.5 mil-
lion in dividends next month.
United recently established a new
fans’ advisory board to improve dia-
logue between supporters and the club,
and give them more say in key deci-
sions, but the feeling against the Glaz-
ers remains strong. A new supporters’
group, The 1958, has given the anti-
Glazer protests a new lease of life in
recent weeks, with protests taking place
towards the end of the season.
Arnold told the fans’ forum that he
and the board were unhappy with the
team’s performance this season. United
finished sixth, with their lowest Pre-
mier League tally of 58 points. “We un-
derstand fans are frustrated but we feel
confident change is coming,” he said.
6 Manchester United will play Atletico
Madrid, who knocked them out of the
Champions League this season, in a
friendly in Oslo on July 30.Key findings
55
Maximum
recommended
games for
players in a
season.
Mohamed Salah
and Sadio Mané
are among
those to have
played more
this season76%
of players want
additional
regulation to
protect breaks
between
seasons54%
Percentage of
players
surveyed who
say they
suffered an
injury because
of schedule
overload87%
Proportion of
players who
favour limiting
back-to-back
matches (less
than five days
of recovery
time between
games)MICHAEL REGAN/GETTY IMAGESFifpro’s report
cited Maguire,
who played 19
games in a row
with limited rest