PRO SOCCER FAILS SAFETY, VIOLATES LAW

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Professional soccer fails to meet safety standards and violates legal frameworks.

MANCHESTER, Eng­land, Nov. 20 – Pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer is fail­ing to meet required safe­ty stan­dards, vio­lat­ing legal frame­works at Euro­pean and glob­al lev­els, accord­ing to a report by Bel­gium’s KU Leu­ven Uni­ver­si­ty. Com­mis­sioned by FIFPRO, the glob­al soc­cer play­ers’ union, the study will sup­port a joint com­plaint to Euro­pean antitrust reg­u­la­tors filed by FIFPRO Europe, Euro­pean Leagues, and LaLi­ga. The com­plaint accus­es FIFA of deci­sions detri­men­tal to play­er well­be­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing the expand­ed glob­al soc­cer cal­en­dar.

Expand­ed Cal­en­dar Rais­es Con­cerns

Crit­i­cism cen­ters on FIFA’s expand­ed Club World Cup, set to grow from sev­en to 32 teams in 2025. The sched­ule leaves min­i­mal recov­ery time for play­ers, inten­si­fy­ing fatigue and injury risks.

“Fatigue, both phys­i­cal and men­tal, is com­mon in pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball,” said Lode God­deris, an occu­pa­tion­al health expert at KU Leu­ven. “Injury rates are sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than in oth­er indus­tries due to relent­less sched­ul­ing and vary­ing train­ing loads.”

FIFPRO’s Alexan­der Biele­feld high­light­ed mount­ing play­er dis­con­tent. “Play­ers face an increas­ing­ly packed cal­en­dar, with new com­pe­ti­tion for­mats adding to their work­load. Many are no longer will­ing to endure the phys­i­cal and men­tal toll.”

Legal Stan­dards and Play­er Safe­ty

The report con­cludes that Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) stan­dards, defined by Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al laws, are ful­ly applic­a­ble to pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer but are often ignored. 

“Foot­ball play­ers are work­ers, and employ­ment stan­dards must be upheld,” said Frank Hen­drickx, Direc­tor of the Insti­tute for Labour Law at KU Leu­ven. FIFPRO argues that match fre­quen­cy, trav­el, and dis­rupt­ed sleep sched­ules are rarely con­sid­ered in com­pe­ti­tion plan­ning, under­min­ing play­er wel­fare and col­lec­tive agree­ments.

FIFA Faces Legal Chal­lenges

A joint com­plaint filed in Brus­sels on Oct. 14 accus­es FIFA of abus­ing its dom­i­nance in vio­la­tion of EU law. “FIFA’s actions not only neglect play­er safe­ty but active­ly pre­vent com­pli­ance with health stan­dards,” said EU com­pe­ti­tion lawyer Alfon­so Lamadrid.

The evi­dence also sup­ports a sep­a­rate legal action by play­er asso­ci­a­tions in Eng­land, France, and Italy. FIFA has not yet com­ment­ed on the alle­ga­tions.