England - Players and Union seeking a winter break.

From the BBC

Players Union chief Gordon Taylor is looking for a 2-week winter break to ease the strain on professional footballers.

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Players' union chief Gordon Taylor has led calls for a mid-season window while 13 of the 15 union reps who responded to a BBC Sport survey supported it.

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Middlesboro chairman Steve Gibson comes across well, he is against it.

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"If the players aren't up to it they aren't up to it. There would be many players upset if they were forced to miss an international because someone perceived them to be tired.

"Any player complaining should come and do a 14-hour day in industrial Teesside. We're not asking them to go to Afghanistan or Iraq, we're asking them to play football."

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Seems unnessecary to me. Apart from extreme examples like Gerrard's in the article, it's hardly a tough job, even if every 90 minutes is high pressure.


The players want it- BBC

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Everton and England defender Phil Neville told BBC Sport: "It will get the players fresh and revitalised.

"Then England might go into a European Championship or World Cup fresher and with a better chance of winning."

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Medical researchers say it would reduce stress-related injuries -

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Jan Ekstrand, vice chair of Uefa's medical committee, has carried out detailed research on the subject.

He told BBC Sport: "What we found was that in the first part of the season, up to December, the injuries were about the same for the English teams and teams from other parts of Europe.

"But in the last part of the season there was a higher injury risk in England.
"The amazing thing was that the risk was about double in January, February and March, but in April and May it was four times higher compared to teams that do have a winter break.

"We know from other sports that if you continue and don't have a rest, you have problem with injuries."

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What do people think?

I think footballers should realise how good they have it and stop moaning. Seriously in the last two decades this game has sunk lower and lower because of how out of touch footballers are with their clubs supporters. Wages and nonsense like saying they need a 2 week break to go with their summer holidays doesn't help things at all. I see that the British Sports Minister has criticised John Terry's wages and that Gordon Taylor just didn't get what the Minister was talking about as well (he started going on about how great Terry was, without realising that the Minister picked him, as England Captain, as an example of football's high wages).

I do agree with Phil Neville that it would help the English national side however, but still think they should button it before the fans drop off in even higher numbers and they lose their livelihood

I think they should get it seeing as every other major league in Europe has one I dont see why they shouldnt

I hope they bring it in, for the last 3 years the Christmas period is the one time I can actually plan to get to a Spurs game or 2, if they bin it I will run out of excuses for continuing to get suckered in to wasing my money on overpaid prima-donnas

They should limit teams in the respective leagues in England if they want to combat player fatigue. 18, maybe even 16, should be the most any league should have. The two cup competitions don't help either. Also a complete overhaul of the European competitions is needed, imo. First and second ONLY should be given CL places for the top countires (England, Spain and Italy all have 4 places each; France and Germany 3) and then offer 3 UEFA Cup places to the top federations and they can be rewarded accordingly as in Spain, Italy and Germany there is no League Cup. The German League Cup is an expanded Charity Shield with only eight teams and takes place in August as a pre-season cmpetition.

In this case only 5 teams in England would be playing in shortened European competitions and they'd have less league games per season. That would certainly help the national team (I believe that this whole story has a national team angle).

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Originally Posted by endabob1

I hope they bring it in, for the last 3 years the Christmas period is the one time I can actually plan to get to a Spurs game or 2, if they bin it I will run out of excuses for continuing to get suckered in to wasing my money on overpaid prima-donnas

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I would imagine if it did come in it would be in early January. The Christmas period is a very popular/traditional football period. This was probably mentioned in the article that I was too lazy to read.

There's serious talk in Germany at the momentabout scrapping or shortening their winter break.

for a 130 grand a year I'd play football every day of the week. They want a break? My heart bleeds for em.

The problem as has been pointed out here is the elite-ness of European competition and how much money is available there in TV money. I strongly believe just one (that's right one) team from each country should play in the CL. As you'd get more 'less attractive teams' involved in that, it would lower the financial importance of it and make league competitions more competitive, whilst also reducing wages.

As for the break, these players do a couple of hours' work a day. That's their 'break', in my opinion. I think Christmas Day and New Years' Day should be days off as they are family days, but there is no need for a winter break whatsoever. Boxing Day games are one of my favourite footballing traditions and it would be a massive shame to lose them.

I think a weekend off would be a good idea that way its only one weekend with out a game but the players get 13 days off. Over playing has a big influence on a game.

If some one is forking out a lot of money to go see the matches i think they deserve to be watching players at there best look at games where players have a europeen hangover after 60mins there are worn out and the game turns into a pile of rubbish.Unless you have a big enough squad you can rotate and that in itself brings another set of problems

Whether a player gets £100 or £100,000 makes no difference to him getting tired. They arent machines

I would imagine for a weekend off the players wouldn't get close to 13 days off. Probably closer to 4 or 5, then back to training for the week to keep sharp.

They should be cutting the number of games to reduce the amount of midweek games season long.

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Originally Posted by noby

I would imagine for a weekend off the players wouldn't get close to 13 days off. Probably closer to 4 or 5, then back to training for the week to keep sharp.

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yes i did mean 13 days off from matches they would still do the same training. maybe pop off somewhere sunny to do a spot of training in the heat .