Last season Man City played 73 games & hamstring injuries increased by 96% for EPL clubs! So I spent 30+ hrs analyzing whether players, fans & football itself can sustain this exhausting schedule. Here’s what I found:

The total number of player injuries across all of Europe’s top five men’s leagues was 3,985 throughout the 2022/23 season. 

In Spain, Real Madrid accrued the highest injury count (72), double that of rivals Barcelona (36). The Premier League recorded the second-highest number of injuries across Europe, after the Bundesliga, with 946 injuries at an average of 47 per side.

Player injuries in the EPL are up by 30% compared to last season while hamstring injuries are up an incredible 96% from last season

• From 2024, the Champions League will have 8 group games instead of 6.
• The FIFA Club World Cup is increasing from 7 to 32 teams in 2025, adding another 7 games to clubs’ schedules.
• The Euros have already increased the number of teams from 16 to 24.
• The 2026 FIFA World Cup will have 48 teams instead of 32 (a 50% increase) and will have 104 matches compared to 64.

In the 2021/22 season, Premier League clubs’ revenue increased by 12% to an all-time high of £5.5 billion. Commercial sponsorships and broadcasting revenue together contributed 86% of this revenue.

If we combine the Big 5 Leagues, the total revenue comes out to £17.2 billion, with broadcasting and commercial revenue contributing the majority share.

In the same year, UEFA generated £4 billion, with broadcasting rights contributing over £3.4 billion. FIFA amassed a broadcast revenue of £2.96 billion, in large part thanks to the Qatar World Cup.

This is big money, and to make sure that sponsorship and media revenue keeps coming in, UEFA and FIFA appear to have come up with a master plan: More Games!

The number of fixtures in the Premier League and other domestic football calendars is relatively consistent.

There are a few changes that could be made in English football to reduce fixture congestion: removing FA Cup replays or (whisper it) the League Cup as a whole. But that wouldn’t address the primary issue: the expansion of FIFA and UEFA competitions.

The football calendar needs to be addressed as a collective to protect the players and the quality of the product. FIFA did not consult domestic leagues on its plan to expand the Club World Cup, despite the significant impact these decisions have on national tournaments.

With UEFA and FIFA extending their competitions well into the summer, player’s barely get any time off. The PFA and FIFPRO rules dictate a mandatory 3-week rest period between seasons.

In addition to these 3 weeks, medical experts believe that players need another 3 weeks of pre-season to prepare for competitive matches again.

Manchester United and France centre back Raphael Varane retired from international football due to a ‘suffocating and overloaded’ schedule.

More players will have to make decisions like this when their mental and physical health continues to be disregarded by the federations and governing bodies that rely on them to sell their rights.

As clubs can’t prevent players going on international duty under FIFA laws, the players are the ones that have the power to influence policy. And if the top players don’t play in certain competitions, the value of ‘football: the product’ decreases.

This leads to:

Depreciation of the product

Is this ‘more games = more revenue’ equation true? Not entirely.

Let’s look at the NFL. Each team in the NFL plays 17 games in a year. Compare this to Manchester City, who last season played 73 games across all competitions.

Even with this comparatively small number of games played, the NFL generates $10 billion a season in revenue from broadcasting rights alone. That’s $5 billion more than UEFA and the Premier League.

Data suggests that fan fatigue is at an all-time high; fans can barely keep up. And if the fans can’t keep up, the audience diminishes. And if the audience drops off, the value of the product declines. The knock-on effect is real.

While there are differences between football and the NFL that means we can’t compare these two sporting institutions and how they commercialise holistically, the NFL business model does indicate that sometimes less is more

The more exclusive something is, the more it is valued by the market. By continuing to expand the game at every possible opportunity, does the value of football ‘the product’ diminish?

Is it all that bad?

Taking a different view, the congested calendar can also create opportunity. The more games a club plays, the more opportunities a club has to give squad players a chance.

FC Barcelona is a prime example. It is not a stretch to suggest the rise of Pedri, Gavi, Balde and co. was partly due to the number of fixtures established senior players had to play. Additional games gave youth a chance, a chance they may not have had with fewer matches.

Chris Smalling told the story of how Fulham’s unexpected run to the Europa League final in 2010 led to increased first team opportunities and helped facilitate his move to Manchester United.

But this asks another key question. What do fans pay to see? The athlete or the club? The globalisation of football has created international icons of the top players. It is now just as feasible that part of the audience tunes in to watch Erling Haaland as much as they do to follow Manchester City.

Sporting Kansas City moved their match against Messi’s Inter Miami from their 18,000 seater stadium to the Chiefs 76,000 seater Arrowhead Stadium to accommodate (and take advantage of) the inevitable Messi-mania.

Purists may not like to recognise this, but if the key players that sell tickets and inflate media rights don’t play, does the interest remain? And then we’re back to the deprecation of product discussion.

So looking at these factors as one, the obvious answer is to sit everyone down and thrash out a reasonable and balanced fixture schedule that quenches the thirst of the fan, gives the media the value they crave, and sends the players off to the spa every other month.

Eventually, someone will eventually have to compromise…

What do you think the future of the football calendar looks like moving forward?

PS – you can check out the whole essay (with some cool charts & graphs) – dig in here

PPS – The CEO of the PFA (Professional Footballers' Association) shared some really cool insights around fixture-congestion & the future of football