England’s Professional Footballers’ Association has launched legal action over plans for a Club World Cup due to concerns about player burnout.
The PFA – which represents Premier League players, among others – said the decision “was taken without negotiation or engagement with players’ unions”.
He called the tournament “a turning point for the football calendar and for players’ ability to take meaningful breaks between seasons.”
The legal action was launched in the Belgian judicial system with other European players’ unions and appeals FIFA abandon plans for the 32-team competition in June and July 2025.
The global players union FIFPRO and the World Leagues Association also sent a letter to the FIFA president Gianni Infantino last month to demand that it not go ahead.
Their letter said FIFA was being “inherently abusive” in adding games.
Club World Cup will be held every four yearsreplacing the little-regarded annual seven-team event that Manchester City won in December.
Twelve teams from Europe would participate and, after a group stage of three teams, there would be four more matches until the final.
Gianni Infantino, head of FIFA, supports the new tournament
Premier League manager Richard Masters recently complained about the lack of consultation from FIFA over the competition, which follows UEFA’s expansion of the Champions League to add games next season.
“The feedback we get from players is that there’s a lot of football played,” he said.
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If their teams qualified for all the new competitions, some Premier League players could be forced to play more than 85 games in some years, for club and country.
The congested fixture list leaves players with little space for rest and recovery, and FIFA is yet to meet demands for a mandatory 28-day off-season break.
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FIFA said the Club World Cup aims to grow the game globally and has the agreement of the European Club Association, with whom it has a commercial partnership.
Real Madrid recently committed to playing in the tournament despite manager Carlo Ancelotti telling Italian media that the club would “refuse”.
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