(Football news) Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois gave a damning assessment of football’s global calendar and blamed governing bodies such as FIFA and UEFA for prioritizing revenue over player welfare in a post match interview after UEFA Nations League third place play-off. The 29 year old called the match ‘pointless’ as both countries made wholesale changes to their starting line-up.
Courtois did not mince his words in the post match interview and said “This game is just a money game and we have to be honest about it. We just play it because for UEFA it's extra money. Look at how much both teams changed [line-ups]. If both teams would have been in the final there would have been other players in the final playing. This just shows that we play too many games.”
Courtois also criticized FIFA for considering proposals of staging the World Cup every two years. He said “They [UEFA] made an extra trophy [UEFA Conference League]… it is always the same. They can be angry about other teams wanting a Super League but they don't care about the players, they just care about their pockets. It's a bad thing that players are not spoken about. And now you hear about a European Championship and a World Cup every year, when will we get a rest? Never."
If the proposal to host a biennial World Cup does go through, football players will be playing more games than ever before and Courtois says the schedule will only result in more frequent injuries. So in the end top players will get injured and injured and injured. It's something that should be much better and much more taken care of," said Courtois.
"We are not robots! It's just more and more games and less rest for us and nobody cares about us. Next year we have a World Cup in November, we have to play until the latter stages of June again. We will get injured! Nobody cares about the players anymore. Three weeks of holiday is not enough for players to be able to continue for 12 months at the highest level. If we never say anything it [will be] always the same."
Courtois is currently plying his trade at Real Madrid, one of the founding clubs of the European Super League which ironically was a money making concept for a select few clubs. However, it’s been clear that UEFA and FIFA have long enjoyed their monopoly at domestic and international competitions and perceived the Super League as a threat to the status quo. It’s about time player welfare is given a higher priority than generating revenue because the current international and domestic calendar is reaching a dangerous tipping point and may not be sustainable for years to come.
