To launch the findings of the 2022 Player and High Performance Coach Surveys in collaboration with Football Benchmark, FIFPRO and the UNFP hosted an event in Paris on Thursday, May 26th 2022.
Discussions in the French capital included the topics of balancing workload performance, sustainable careers and the international match calendar.
Ahead of the UEFA Champions League final two days later, the event brought together several key stakeholders in the football industry such as FIFA and representatives from player unions and domestic leagues.
Alexander Bielefeld, FIFPRO Director Global Policy & Strategic Relations, and a moderator on one of the panels, said: The Player and High Performance Coach surveys we have launched in Paris is again one of our PWM (Player Workload Monitoring) reports. And for the first time, we have actually brought two different audiences together.
“The perspective and observations of high performance cultures is a very unique survey in that sense. The main finding from the survey actually connected to the data we have from the PWM is actually that players and their subjective, personal feeling on player workload absolutely aligns with the medical experts in the field and the high performance coaches - they both actually agree with players, that what we need in the industry to move forward is a transition to a calendar which is player centric and integrates workload safeguards in that we need regulations.
“We need to regulate and protect off-season periods, we need to regulate them amount of matches through, for example, back-to-back metric relations.
Among the speakers in Paris was former Real Madrid, Chelsea, PSG and France Player Claude Makélélé. He told FIFPRO.org:
"I think (events and reports like this) are very important, because we are talking about the main actor, which is the player. I think after four, five, six years, many players are starting to be tired, for example as they do not get to see family. The focus is just football, football, football. The only interest is in the people at the top of the pyramid, not for the player, so I think it is very important to have the voice for the player.
It needs to be stronger. I think FIFPRO do very well at the way you put the problem, but I think it is difficult to sit down and talk in a good way, since for everybody “winning” is different”. It would be very good, as it is about spectacular football, amazing like the final we will see here (in Paris).”
The 2022 Player and High Performance Coach Survey is available to read here.
