FA warns rigorous player schedule could harm England's World Cup chances - but is that an excuse?

Martin Macdonald

• 3 Apr 2026 07:30 CDT
• 4 min read

News

The English Football Association believes that the ever-increasing football calendar and fixture congestion could harm England's hopes to win the 2026 World Cup.

There has never been more football matches than there is now in the modern game, with the recent Club World Cup the latest tournament that elite clubs and players were expected to attend, in the roasting heat of an American summer, no less.

A top player featuring in the Premier League and for their country, last season, would have been expected to play in the Premier League, the FA Cup, the Champions League, the League Cup, international qualifiers, the Nations League and the Club World Cup.

FA Cup replays were recently scrapped to ease the congestion, but a better balance is required, according to the FA, who believe England players will suffer from fatigue this summer at the World Cup.

The football authority says there is a need to "balance the development of the global competition calendar with the imperative of protecting player welfare" and that task has been "complicated by the ambitions of competition owners to expand their events within an already crowded schedule".

The FA said in its annual report for 2024/25, as reported by the BBC:

"The ongoing discussions regarding future structural changes to the game, such as the introduction of new tournaments (eg. Fifa Club World Cup), further intensify this challenge.

"These changes have the potential to significantly reduce the downtime available to elite players, affecting their recovery and overall well-being.

"The introduction of more global competitions risks devaluing traditional domestic tournaments, such as the FA Cup, and may affect the performance of our national teams due to increased player fatigue and reduced time for international squad training."

Interestingly, there are no English players or even a player who plays in the Premier League in that list.

However, commentators will point to the supposed competitive, rigorous nature of the English top flight compared to other elite leagues.

Interestingly, within the top five leagues - Premier League, La Liga, German Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and La Liga - 15 players from the Premier League top the list for the most amount of minutes played in 2025/26, according to FBRef.

However, when you look at that list - Martin Dubravka, Bernd Leno, Nikola Milenkovic, David Raya, Virgil van Dijk, Bart Verbruggen, Guglielmo Vicario, James Garner, Jarrod Bowen, Elliott Anderson, Morgan Rogers and Adrien Truffert - only two of them are outfield England regulars (Rogers and Anderson).

Take talisman, Harry Kane. He is 329th on the list of players who have played the most minutes in a top-five league this season. Jude Bellingham is 980th, though has had injuries, Adam Wharton is 254th, Bukayo Saka is 375th.

'How not to treat a human'

Fifpro, the international football players union, previously said players are caught in a "perfect storm of how not to treat a human".

Last year, Fifpro analysed some of the workload, travel and recovery periods of certain players and determined that, especially for players in the Club World Cup, they did not receive an adequate period of rest before and after the tournament ahead of the 2025/26 season.

Australia goalkeeper Mathew Ryan travelled more than 100,000 miles last season, while veteran midfielder Luka Modric, who turned 40 last September, played more games than anyone else in the world.

The report also determined that Lamine Yamal had played 130 matches before turning 18.

Alex Phillips, the secretary general of Fifpro, said: "Last year, the Ballon d'Or winner [Rodri] got injured and missed nearly a season.

"This season, the Ballon d'Or winner [Ousmane Dembele] is out again with a muscle injury.

"How long will this keep happening until even the club owners realise it's bad for business?

"We're looking at the player health issue but even the people owning clubs and leagues are starting to take note and realise the system isn't working for anyone."

Darren Burgess, a high-performance consultant for Fifpro, said: "It's a perfect storm of how not to treat a human - a large number of games and less than the recommended off-season days to go into a large number of games.

"The cycle goes on."

There is undoubtedly a case to be made that the football schedule, plus travel, plus a lack of recovery period is impacting players.

However, there's nothing from data to suggest that England players should be impacted more than their summer opponents like Spain, France or Germany.

Again, pundits will point to the 'Toughest League in the World' moniker as a reason why Premier League and England players may feel their legs stiffen quicker than most in North America.

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