FIFA President Gianni Infantino said player welfare will be a top priority as the world governing body revamps the international sustainability programme. FIFA’s proposal for a biennial World Cup was widely criticized last year amid concerns over burn-out due to rising players’ demands. Infantino discussed the issue in Manchester on Thursday after accepting an invitation from the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) to meet key players and union representatives.
The meeting was also attended by Manchester United’s Paul Pogba and Juan Mata, PFA chief executive Maheta Molongo and FIFA’s head of global football development Arsene Wenger.
“It was a really great meeting. I was very happy that the players reached out to us, especially to me, because we really want to hear everyone,” Infantino said.
“Players are important when it comes to the game. Of course, we need to care about the players, we want to protect the players and to really know their concerns, we need to talk to them directly.
“At the end of the day what we want for men’s and women’s football is for players to be at their best, not just in one competition but in all competitions.
“Women and men are facing the same issue – go back and forth, back and forth and play a competition, a finals tournament and then go back and soon after moving to another part of the world.
“We need to bring some more coordination in the international match calendar.”
Infantino acknowledged that the game has changed significantly since the current international calendar was drawn up, with more players now playing away from their home countries, requiring a lot of travel.
“Times have changed, globalization is coming. In England you have players from 100 countries playing professional sports,” he said.
“It wasn’t like that many years ago and the calendar is still the same, so we need to adapt, we need to do something.
Infantino admitted that a possible change from a World Cup every four years to a biennial event was not the main issue discussed at the Manchester meeting.
“The biennial World Cup was also mentioned. There are different views, but we have not sought any opinion on whether you are in favor of it, are you against it. It was not the main topic,” he said.
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