Collymore bemoans the lack of player care

The issue of player welfare tends to come up every so often, normally when players are injured ahead of summer tournaments and because of playing far too many games in the previous campaign.

Such is the price to be paid if you’re a football player at the top level, however, it’s about time that the powers that be pay more than lip service to a situation that’s fast becoming out of hand.

For example, the 2023/24 Premier League campaign had literally just finished but that didn’t stop Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur heading to Australia to play a post-season friendly – at the end of a gruelling nine-month season and right before players need to travel with their national teams for either the European Championship or Copa America.

Summer friendlies and non-mandated tournaments need to stop says Collymore

Those two tournaments and the World Cup are arguably exceptions, but it’s the incessant summer friendlies and money-making games that are disrupting the equilibrium for players that can’t ever seem to get off the hamster wheel.

Former professional, Stan Collymore, has a simple enough solution.

“Darwin Nunez scored a hat trick on Wednesday and we’re only less than two weeks after the Premier League finished,” he said to CaughtOffside for his exclusive column.

“Other than for international tournaments, which tend to start mid June – as we’ve seen with the Euros and their equivalent – I think that we need to have a serious look at post-season friendlies and almost ban teams from going because for the amount of money they get (£2m-£5m a pop) I don’t think it’s financially worthwhile.

Stan Collymore is very unhappy with the amount of summer friendlies and tournaments played at present

“When people say ‘Oh, we’re breaking new markets,’ no you’re not. You’re just going for a little greedy couple of million pounds payout, which which will go into the coffers.

“I think that any games in the domestic leagues, the Champions League…

Source link : https://www.caughtoffside.com/2024/06/06/collymore-player-welfare-important/

Author : Jason Pettigrove

Publish date : 2024-06-06 18:23:53

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