Does NFL hold the key to finish the bitter football welfare line?

The bitter ranks between FIFA and the FIFPRO player union increased in the new Club World Cup in the US, but looking across the pool can provide a solution.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino might like the slogan “soccer uniting the world” but the new club’s world cup only appears to encourage further slices between government agencies and many of its most important stakeholders.

The new 32-TIM competition, which will take place in the summer every four years, has become the subject of a legal battle brought by the FIFPRO and domestic league union for what they see as the imposition of additional tournaments without adequate consultation.

Infantino then poked Sarang Hornets with failed to emerge for related meetings about the welfare of players with FIFPRO in New York on Saturday, the club of the Club World Cup at the nearest Metlife Stadium, triggered a scathing response from the President of the Trade Union.

The essence of the feud is the problem of the player’s workload. FIFPRO President Sergio Marchi this week accused Infantino and FIFA roughly driving his concern for “Extraordinary Staging Realing the ‘Roma Nero Roti and Circus”.

Earlier this year Fifpro issued a study that drew the views of industrial experts, who called for the implementation of certain protection to prevent the fatigue of players and injuries, such as a four -week break must be added to the conditioning of at least four weeks between the season.

However, it will threaten the club’s World Cup performance, which will come less than five weeks before the new Premier League season will begin and because it is likely to be opposed strongly by FIFA, which is the potential long -term long -term cash cattle.

The part of the problem is the lack of data collection centered on the workload and rest, and its impact on injury and recovery, in very fragmented sports. But in the midst of all the quarrels at Big Apple, the solution might be close.

American Sports has long been in the pioneer using data, and NFL is especially seen as a leader in using numbers to make evidence -based decisions about the welfare of players and many factors that can affect it.

“NFL may be a gold standard in relation to this,” said Stephen Smith, founder and CEO of Kitman Labs, a sports science firm and client whose clients include American soccer competition, English Rugby and Premier League.

“They gather every single injury, how it happens, the field occurs, the equipment worn by the person, surface condition, humidity, temperature -they really collect everything, so that they can start to see it and then understand what aspects of their games that affect their injury.

“Over the past 10 years, there have been more than 30 changes in the rules applied to their games, all based on empirical evidence – not based on opinions or professional practitioners who say that certain things cause injury – based on real numbers and real data that affect their game.”

While additional games are undoubtedly increasing the workload for teams and players who take part, FIFPRO’s argument for larger protection has not been helped by the lack of evidence that can be given for the recommended solutions, Smith said.

“I will agree with FIFPRO that adding in the Club World Cup will add fatigue, but I do not suggest that the rest time of blankets and pre-season four weeks is the way you fix this problem. I don’t think anyone has statistical evidence about it.

“Why four weeks? Why not four and a half weeks? Why not five weeks? Show me empirical data that four weeks of leave, four weeks of pre-season will experience a reduction in the number of injuries. Or show the impact on performance, on the recovery index, in training. This is a very complex problem.”

Both Fifpro and FIFA cannot claim to have that answer because – unlike in NFL or even English rugby – data is in Silo, with an individual team than the league and government agency, Smith said.

“Everyone does their own things in their own pockets. How many injuries do you might have in a group of 30 players? What is the significance of statistics that you will find in 10 to 15 injuries?

“You need the entire league to be able to make insights like this. So we need a league to make this decision, or we need a government body like FIFA or UEFA to say, ‘Hey, we need to do this in all our competitions’.

“I do not have a gap in football here. The Premier League has become a big supporter for the health and safety of players, data collection, etc.

“It takes a joining approach. Individual rights holders will not be able to solve this problem themselves, and that is why I think FIFA, FIFPRO, UEFA-all parties really gather to solve this problem.”

Apart from the inherent concerns about the apathetic fans, illustrated by many people in several group stage matches in the US, FIFA considers the club’s world cup as success and money involved means maybe here to remain. The solution to the player’s welfare debate, then, is even more urgent.

“This information is being collected – it’s just not collected consistently. That is not collected on the same platform. There is no standard mechanism or where to collect all of these data. Therefore we cannot do the findings of broad -scale research,” Smith said.

“We feel a huge opportunity to do this, and that will really help unite all of these people, rather than making them sit on the opposite side of the table, and instead of one party that regulates the conference of the health and safety of the players, and the other is not true -really involved because the relationship is so tense.”