The club v country row between the Football Association and Women’s Super League sides may be resolved, but what does it say about the development of the women’s game and what damage has been done?
It is just over six weeks since the European Club Association criticised attempts by national federations to sidestep the 10 July mandatory release date for players before the Women’s World Cup, while acknowledging that that date, set by Fifa, was inadequate.
It is just over three weeks since Fifa and the ECA agreed a non-mandatory release period of 23-29 June, a compromise that took into account club desires for players to have a post-season break and the needs of national teams to ensure match readiness and preparation.
Except the FA had its plans in place: for players to work on independent development programmes from 12-16 June before being called up to a first prep camp from 19-23 June, a second from 26 June-1 July and to fly to Australia for a third from 7-17 July. It has been a plan long in the making and was informed by preparations for last summer’s Euros that were hugely effective, when training camps were punctuated by time off with friends and families. It was also informed by England’s performance staff, who had mapped out what was too much time off versus too little.
The problem was that although the FA communicated the dates informally to players and club managers as far back as November, clubs were not formally consulted and had not agreed to them.
There was naivety from the FA. In talks it argued it had done things the way they had always been done. But with the game increasingly professional, the interests of clubs and national teams were inevitably going to come into conflict, and it had not got clubs on board. Players are now valuable assets which clubs and national teams want to protect, for their own benefit over that of the other party.
In reality, both need each other. A strong national team boosts interest in the league and clubs. Clubs build and train players, which the national teams benefit from. It should be a reciprocal relationship, but it is in constant tension. While women’s football was not professional and transfer fees and player wages were low, it could exist with slack in the relationship between club and country, but now the tug of war familiar in the modern men’s game has started to rear its head.
The FA’s desire to have the players four days before the suggested release window may make it appear a somewhat trivial discussion. It is four days, and England are not the only side wanting players early. But now the clubs have folded to England’s request they are having to contact other national teams to say that if a reason for an exemption from the suggested timeframe can be shown, they will consider it.
The impasse and intransigence have frustrated clubs. But it is the way the FA has operated that has done real damage. The clubs claim players were asked via WhatsApp during their post-season holidays to commit to being in camp on 19 June, before any agreement had been reached. Some had made bookings for the hotel at England’s St George’s Park training base to begin training if necessary to meet the needs of the FA. Players are also said to have been warned that should they not be ready for 19 June then they would not be ready for the 1 July send-off game against Portugal in Milton Keynes and that if they came on 23 June the lost four days would have to be made up for by removing four of the five days off scheduled for time with friends and family.
Clubs capitulated because they believe players were being put in a compromising position, forced to make a decision that should not be in their hands. The result is that relations between WSL clubs and the FA are at a low. It is understood that the manager, Sarina Wiegman, handled discussions reasonably, but huge damage has been done by those leading the talks. There will likely be no goodwill towards the FA for the foreseeable future as a result. When it comes to discussions around injured players, resting players and calling up players early, there are likely to be few favours from clubs. In discussions on these issues or similar, the voice of the FA will not be as strong.
The FA, approached for comment, pointed to its statement on Friday that referred to a “mutual understanding of the clubs, as we have collectively worked towards a solution with the wellbeing of players at the heart”.
The England setup has put short-term gain ahead of long-term relations and could end up wondering whether the stubbornness was worth it.
In many respects, everyone has a point. Ultimate blame lies with Fifa, which is responsible for a mess of a calendar. The World Cup final takes place on 20 August, Champions League qualifiers, which include Arsenal, start on 6 September, there is an international break from 18-26 September, when England play their first two Nations League games, and clubs will then have players back for three days before the WSL season kicks off. It is unsatisfactory and relentless.
The pandemic squeezed the calendar somewhat. With Tokyo 2020 pushed to 2021 and the Euros moved back a year to 2022, top players have five years of back-to-back tournaments: that Olympics and Euros, the World Cup in 2023, the Paris Olympics in 2024 and the Euros in Switzerland in 2025.
People raise how many games the men play when there is talk about how many the women play. But the men have been primed for professional football and the intensity of the scheduling from an early age. The women’s game is newly professional and players are seeing a huge increase in minutes without the rest and recovery needed to cope with it.
Beth Mead, who will miss the World Cup because of an anterior cruciate ligament injury, alluded to the scale of the problem when she said she had “gone from 2,000-odd minutes to 4,000-odd minutes in a season”. She said: “[It] is a steep jump. We want the game to go to that level but it’s keeping our bodies up to that level to do that as well and it’s caught up on a few of us, which is a shame.”
A holistic approach is needed that puts player welfare at the heart of decision-making. Fifa, federations and clubs need healthy players. The growth of the game, of major tournaments and of leagues and clubs, doesn’t happen without the players.
