PFA chief demands action as players buckle under workload

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Palmer is one of five injured players to pull out of Thomas Tuchel’s squad for the current round of Nations League fixtures in a trend that Molango says is mirrored across the Europe because of an unsustainable workload.

The PFA boss wants Fifa to look again at what is being asked of players, insisting they are paying the price for the expansion of the World Cup and the Club World Cup for reasons “which have nothing to do with the good of the game.”

“When England see five players who need to withdraw when the single most proud moment a player has is to be called up for the national team, you just ask yourself, what’s wrong about the industry?” Molango said at the Fifpro performance summit in London today.

“You see people like Cole Palmer, someone who would have played four consecutive summers in a row had he gone to the World Cup, and you wonder why is he missing?

“He’s missing because he’s a victim of the calendar and that’s something that needs to absolutely trigger the alarm bells.

“For those who think that it’s only a matter in England, then look at [other recent withdrawals from European teams] Kai Havertz, Brian Brobbey and Kylian Mbappe and ask yourself — is that really the football that we want?

“I want to see them perform at their peak and it shouldn’t be the survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, both on the male and female sides, that’s not what we’re seeing.”

Apart from an overhaul of the calendar, Molango is calling for players to be given a three-week holiday followed by three weeks of “retraining” every summer.

Premier League chief football officer Rebecca Caplehorn insists that proposal is not viable, however.

“It’s something we’re really supportive of, conceptually, but the challenge is that it just doesn’t fit into the current calendar,” Caplehorn said.