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(The Guardian) Fifa defends Club World Cup scheduling
Fifa have hit back in the growing row over fixture congestion by insisting they are “fully within our rights” to roll out a 32 team Club World Cup (CWC), despite concerns over burn-out for players.
On Thursday it was revealed that the international players union, Fifpro, and the organisation World Leagues were considering taking legal action over the scheduling of the CWC, with the union claiming a lack of consultation. In a written response, which has been seen by the Guardian, Fifa claims it fully consulted on changes to the match calendar and received approval for those changes before it acted to introduce the new tournament, which is scheduled to take place in the United States this summer.
In the letter, Fifa’s interim secretary general, Mattias Grafström, says that any suggestion of a lack of consultation “is simply not supported by the facts”. He says there are chains of correspondence to substantiate that claim and argues that the eventual result of the consultation led to fewer changes being made than had originally been proposed.
On the subject of the CWC, however, Grafström writes “we are, like any other competition organiser around the world, fully within our rights to set the parameters of our competition while respecting the regulatory framework in place”. He goes on to observe that members of the World Leagues have also been setting up their own summer “international tours” presumably a reference to, among other things, the Premier League Summer Series which saw six English clubs compete in various US cities last summer.
In concluding his letter, Grafström invites FifPro and World Leagues for further talks at a time “convenient” to them. “As Fifa has no senior competition over the course of the next weeks, we would suggest that we set a date between the conclusion of the various domestic and continental competitions taking place soon and the preseason activities that will follow thereafter”, he writes.
Fifa have hit back in the growing row over fixture congestion by insisting they are “fully within our rights” to roll out a 32 team Club World Cup (CWC), despite concerns over burn-out for players.
On Thursday it was revealed that the international players union, Fifpro, and the organisation World Leagues were considering taking legal action over the scheduling of the CWC, with the union claiming a lack of consultation. In a written response, which has been seen by the Guardian, Fifa claims it fully consulted on changes to the match calendar and received approval for those changes before it acted to introduce the new tournament, which is scheduled to take place in the United States this summer.
In the letter, Fifa’s interim secretary general, Mattias Grafström, says that any suggestion of a lack of consultation “is simply not supported by the facts”. He says there are chains of correspondence to substantiate that claim and argues that the eventual result of the consultation led to fewer changes being made than had originally been proposed.
On the subject of the CWC, however, Grafström writes “we are, like any other competition organiser around the world, fully within our rights to set the parameters of our competition while respecting the regulatory framework in place”. He goes on to observe that members of the World Leagues have also been setting up their own summer “international tours” presumably a reference to, among other things, the Premier League Summer Series which saw six English clubs compete in various US cities last summer.
In concluding his letter, Grafström invites FifPro and World Leagues for further talks at a time “convenient” to them. “As Fifa has no senior competition over the course of the next weeks, we would suggest that we set a date between the conclusion of the various domestic and continental competitions taking place soon and the preseason activities that will follow thereafter”, he writes.
