
Welcome to the FIFPRO PWM Men’s Football Flash Report 2023, produced in cooperation with Football Benchmark.
It provides a snapshot of the unprecedented workload demands placed upon the game’s leading players prior to and immediately following the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™.
A range of competing industry factors have created the environment for this season’s chaotic match calendar, which presents a clear and pressing danger to the physical and mental health of players. The winter scheduling of the FIFA World Cup, combined with the related scheduling decisions taken by club competition organisers in response, have aggravated workload demands to extreme levels. The forewarned dangers of overload and increased risk of injury continue to become clearer and more evident as the season progresses.
The players remain aligned in their response – as highlighted in the results of the FIFPRO World Cup Player Survey 2023 contained within this report – the unacceptable levels of fixture congestion currently being experienced, without the necessary workload safeguards in place, are extremely damaging to both players and the industry overall.