Man City manager, Pep Guardiola, has put himself in the firing line over recent comments concerning player strikes.
Often outspoken, Guardiola, per The Athletic (subscription required), suggested that if player welfare was to be taken seriously, given the amount of games that those at the elite level now have to play, then perhaps strike action was the only way for FIFA and UEFA to sit up and take notice.
He’s arguably the best coach of this or any other generation so his words will carry some weight.
It won’t make him popular in the corridors of power, however, one of the Premier League’s co-creators, ‘super agent’ Jon Smith, is standing right behind the Catalan.
‘I’m pro Pep on the issue of player strikes. The authorities are going to look for even more opportunities for matches to be played as we’ve recently seen by the soon-to-be expanded Club World Cup, and there’s going to be more games engineered by what comes out of the Gulf,’ he wrote in his exclusive CaughtOffside column.
‘If you look at the game now there are already continuous injuries because football is so quick nowadays. Fitness has to be at the highest level and that requires all parts of the body to be highly tuned and in good shape.
‘Playing so many games without a rest and rushing players back because of the value of having him or her on the field I think is a worry. Some of them only got three weeks off in the summer and that’s it.
‘So no, I don’t disagree with Pep. I think as the value of our game goes up, it’s critically important to look after the participants.’
As unpalatable as a walkout would seem on the face of it, sometimes you just have to make a stand.
Guardiola’s example of what the Spanish Women’s World Cup winning squad had to do to remove the head of their football federation, Luis Rubiales, is spot on.
Perhaps the overriding issue is that the governing bodies just don’t appear to know when to stop.
Any gaps in the calendar are now seemingly being filled by meaningless matches, all of which will take their toll on top players by season’s end.