Premier League Leads Club World Cup Boycott Movement

JAKARTA - The highest football leagues in each country and professional footballers' unions are making FIFA's Club World Cup boycott movement.

The boycott threat was spearheaded by Premier League CEO Richard Masters, PFA (Professional Footballers' Associates England and Wales) Maheta Molanga, and La Liga CEO Javier Tebas.

They will take legal action unless the tournaments participating by the 32 teams are rescheduled.

The reason is, the Club World Cup schedule that has been compiled by FIFA makes players not take holidays or compete throughout the year.

The association of world footballers, FIFPro, and PFA also believes that the scheduling will leave clubs with no choice but to force players to act without pause.

Meanwhile, FIFA officials have dismissed previous concerns about the welfare of players. However, this was denied.

"Football kills its own products. Those who run the game need to listen."

"If not then as unions we have a responsibility to the players to take action. Legal action is the next step."

"Government agencies have every opportunity to engage meaningfully with us on this. However, they failed to do so."

"The current work burden of players is unsustainable. People realize the number of matches put into the calendar of matches is not appropriate."

"This is a problem for football as a whole," Molango told The Sun.

The interclub World Cup boycott movement association has collaborated with lawyers to prepare legal documents for FIFA, unless there is a change in decision.

Richard Masters, who is also the Chairman of the World Leagues Forum and represents every major football league, has sat with Tebas and Molanga at the FIFPro and PFA Players Workingload Conference on Thursday, May 30, 2024, local time, in London.

They gathered to tell FIFA that the world's major leagues would not be playing in the Club World Cup if the schedule was not changed.

Apart from that, it is planned that next year's Club World Cup will feature at least Manchester City, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, and Real Madrid.

The tournament is scheduled to take place from June 15 to July 13, 2025 in the United States. The Club World Cup offers prizes of more than 600 million pounds.