THE global professional football players’ union, Fifpro, and the World Leagues Association have threatened legal action against Fifa should football’s international governing body go ahead with its expanded Club World Cup in 2025.

A report in the London Times last week stated that the two organisations want the tournament rescheduled, citing issues such as match schedule saturation, a threat to domestic leagues, and player welfare.

It is a serious statement of intent from players’ unions in fighting back against the increase in workload and added demands placed on workers by tournament organisers and governing bodies.

Fifpro have regularly raised the issue of the packed schedule players are faced with each year as each league, association, confederation and governing body wring as much football as they can out of players in the pursuit of more money.

The World Leagues Association represents top-level professional leagues around the world and is concerned about Fifa’s increased interest in the club game for its own commercial gains.

Global club competition has always been an intriguing aspect of association football. 

The best clubs in the world playing challenge matches against those from other nations have been part of the sport since the laws of association football were disseminated worldwide.

One of the reasons this sport is dubbed the beautiful game is due to its global appeal. Each region of the world brought its own style and character to the sport, all within the one set of rules.

Since the early 1900s, English clubs have embarked on global tours of South and North America. When the giants of club football were located in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay as much as they were in Europe, intercontinental club competition provided genuine intrigue.

The development of football’s lopsided international capitalist system has seen the Uefa region become the economic powerhouse, regularly depriving other parts of the world of their best players and contributing to the erosion of regional identities and the perceived decline in the stature of their competitions.

Though the introduction of international club competition has been met with resistance, it may be the best way to redistribute some of the wealth. 

This may, in turn, allow other regions to compete in these international matches and also offer top players a career with local clubs, many of which were once international powerhouses in their own right.

International club competition still offers an interesting alternative to the more familiar intra-continental battles. Football is a global game. Global celebrations of it, and the local cultures it facilitates and, in some cases, creates, are a positive endeavour.

The meeting of minds, ideas, and the sharing of cultures through sport should be encouraged but, as is often the case, these non-commercial positives are unlikely to be at the top of Fifa’s priorities when planning such events.

Fifa is not the only one increasing the workload on players, as leagues and governing bodies scramble around to squeeze as much extra money as they can from top-level football.

Some of the leagues within the World Leagues Association are themselves guilty of the things they accuse Fifa of.

The idea of domestic league or cup games played abroad is one of the most obvious recent examples. 

By wanting to play games in the United States, Saudi Arabia or other lucrative locations, the leagues are pursuing their own commercial interests at the expense of the game’s values.

They are spreading their global presence, imposing their “brands” and “products” (which is how they view the clubs) on other regions to increase their commercial footprint and tighten their stranglehold on the game’s resources.

So while there are genuine concerns about player welfare and too many games being played global competition for a global game should not be discouraged.

In the fight for better working conditions unions should also look closer to home — at their own leagues, associations, and continental confederations.

The Premier League, for example, is constantly threatening a form of salary cap, and has recently agreed in principle to a “spending cap.”

This may be beneficial to club owners and give the illusion that some form of financial fair play is being enforced, but any kind of salary cap, regardless of how it is labelled, is anti-worker.

If your form of financial fair play is to artificially limit players’ salaries, then it is not very fair to the workers who are creating this wealth in the first place.

On top of this, next year the Uefa Champions League will include extra games as part of a new format.

As Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola commented recently, the addition of even just two or three more games to an already packed schedule can make a big difference.

“Two or three more games is the equivalent of one month,” Guardiola said when responding to a question on the new Champions League format in October last year.

“Then you finish the season, you are exhausted, and now go to the United States to play the Club World Cup.

“That means, if you reach the final, you finish two or three weeks later [than everyone else], and after that, they likely put on something for the national teams too.

“They make the competitions, but did they speak with the players? The captains of the big teams? Managers of big teams?

“They put on more competitions and, while I’m here, we will play those competitions, all the managers have to do it. Only the players can stop it, no-one else.”

And it seems that, via Fifpro, the players are beginning to take steps towards stopping it.

The Club World Cup has been the main target. Perhaps because it is scheduled to take place in the summer of an odd-numbered year when there would usually be no major international tournaments.

In those years, players would take the opportunity for some rare time off, but instead many will be asked to play in a newly expanded international club football tournament.

The previous Club World Cup would take place midseason, as was the case with the 2023 edition won by Manchester City, and would only include the winners of the six top continental cups from each confederation, plus an extra host team.

This might have made it more palatable as players were already working and in the middle of their season, but it nevertheless added to an already crowded schedule.

Fifpro’s concerns are about the overload of games generally but along with the World Leagues Association seem heavily focused on the new Club World Cup.

There are plenty of issues to be tackled elsewhere, though, and the prospect of a global club competition should not be discouraged or dismissed out of hand, as it may have overall longer-term benefits to the constitution of the global game and the players working in it.