Pep Guardiola has suggested players should consider going on strike to demand a reduction in their workload, as player welfare moved to the heart of the debate over the Premier League’s Covid crisis.
With two more top-flight matches postponed and league officials meeting with club captains and managers to discuss their concerns, temperatures continued to rise even as the various parties agreed to muddle on with the traditional festive program.
Guardiola took the most provocative line, suggesting direct action may be required before the game’s authorities heeded concerns over demands placed on players. “Should the players and the managers be all together and make a strike?” Manchester City’s manager said. “Just through words it’s not going to be solved. For Fifa, the Premier League, the broadcasters, the business is more important than their welfare. The simplest example is all around the world they have five substitutions; here it’s still three. Tell me one argument to take care of players’ welfare than this one? Here, where everyone decides for themselves, we didn’t do it.”
Guardiola’s words were picked up by the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, Maheta Molango, who demanded that authorities take the concerns of elite players more seriously. “I’ve spoken with many senior players on this issue,” he said. “I can tell you that it isn’t going away. Players don’t choose to speak out on issues like this without having given it a lot of thought. Now it’s up to those who run the game at all levels to begin to take this seriously so it’s an issue that can be addressed constructively with players at the heart of the conversation. That has to happen now. ”
Top-flight players are understood to feel aggrieved with the Premier League over a lack of direct communication. Regular meetings held with club captains during Project Restart have not continued and this week’s meeting had been postponed from Monday until Thursday. There are also concerns a new player welfare department within the league has not been proactive enough. The rescheduled meeting ended with captains and the league agreeing to engage in more frequent dialogue.
This week the Liverpool captain, Jordan Henderson, told the BBC that “nobody really takes player welfare seriously”. Among elite players there is concern not only over playing a condensed fixture list during a Covid outbreak but also over upcoming changes to the professional calendar that will mean an expanded Champions League and potentially a World Cup every two years.
As the Boxing day matches Liverpool v Leeds and Wolves v Watford became the latest fixtures to be postponed because of Covid outbreaks at the two away teams, Henderson’s concern was echoed by Rafael Benítez. The Premier League rejected a request to postpone Everton’s Boxing Day game at Burnley despite five positive Covid cases and six injuries in Benítez’s squad. The manager believes his club are being punished for not closing their training ground and that the league’s integrity could be damaged by fulfilling fixtures with academy players.
The league concluded Everton have enough players to fulfil the Burnley fixture. Their available contingent includes Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who has not played for two months because of a thigh muscle re-injury, and several academy players with top-flight experience. One, the 18-year-old midfielder Tyler Onyango, has made two 89th-minute substitute appearances in the Premier League and an 85th-minute substitute’s appearance in the FA Cup.
Benítez said: “Money is now managing the game and it is quite complicated to find the right solution. We are professionals and have to manage the situation but the fans, everybody, want to see the best players on the pitch and playing at the best level possible. You sell the TV rights because you play nice and exciting football, but then all these things happen.”
The Guardian Sport - Paul MacInnes, Andy Hunter
