Tottenham Hotspur don’t have to travel tomorrow when they take on Qarabag in the first match of their Europa League campaign — fortunately, Spurs were drawn at home for this match and the burden of travel falls to the Azerbaijani club. But that’s not to say that the increasingly jam-packed fixture calendar and the increased travel demands levied upon clubs and players isn’t an issue.
Son Heung-Min was asked about those issues in a press conference this morning ahead of tomorrow’s match at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, and I would postulate his comments reflect what is likely the majority opinion among top-level football players.
“A lot of players came out and said the right things. It was very important for someone to say the right things. Sometimes players are the main guys to have to say something. There’s definitely a lot of games and as a football fan who loves football you want to see quality games not as many as possible.
“You don’t want to see players struggling with injuries. No one wants to see it. [There’s] a lot of games, a lot of traveling. We’ve got to look after ourselves, which sometimes it’s very hard. Mentally, physically you’re not ready then going on to the pitch and then with the risk of injury is massive. We’re not robots. We have to look after that and reduce the games definitely – better quality definitely should be the aim.”
Would players consider striking over fixture congestion? Sonny didn’t really answer.
“You want to get to the finals and play a lot of games. That’s a different scenario. But the platform [format] is to play more games. That’s not right to look after players. That’s what we’re talking about. What we can do is definitely change it and definitely go in a good way that people can look after the players.
“[It’s] definitely not [on] the players [to fix the issue]. When the fixtures come, the players have to play. There’s a lot going on. You have the FA and FIFA. Everyone has to take this really seriously. It’s not just random and a few players coming out. There’s way too many games and what you want to see is the quality of the games. High quality games with top players. This should be the aim. Injuries sometimes come with less games but the possibility of lots of traveling, lots of games, injuries will be higher.”
We’ve discussed this issue on the site and in the comments a lot over the years, but it’s different to actually hear from a top level player about this challenges put in place by the increasing number of fixture demands on professional footballers. It’s clear that the current calendar is not sustainable, but there isn’t really a clear path forward as to how to fix it, especially with so much money on the line for federations, clubs, and promoters.
Tottenham kicks off against Qarabag tomorrow (Thursday) at 3:00 p.m. ET, 8:00 p.m. BST. The match will be televised in the UK on TNT Sports 1 and streamed on Paramount+ in USA.
