Alan Shearer thinks football’s elite players may be at “breaking point” amid an increasingly demanding calendar.
Shearer is part of the Amazon Prime Video Sport commentary team for its coverage of the new-look Champions League, where teams will now have to play up to four more matches to advance from what is now the league phase to the last 16.
The former England forward believes the cracks are already starting to show, and players’ unions are so concerned they have initiated two separate legal actions against FIFA over what they see as a lack of consultation on the fixture schedule and its impact on player welfare.
“When you look perhaps at the European Championship just gone by, there wasn’t great quality,” Shearer said at an event to launch Amazon’s Champions League coverage in the UK.
“The best team without doubt won the tournament (Spain), they played the best football by a mile. But when you look at France, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Portugal, there wasn’t a great amount of quality, and there has to be a reason for that.
“Is it that players are going into the summer knackered? There has to come a point where it’s breaking point, and perhaps it’s getting to that now.
“It’s important that you keep the quality of the football, because that’s what we all want.
“We all want to watch the best players play the best football, and hopefully we’ll see that in the Champions League this season.
“But there has to come a point – and maybe it is now – where there are too many games. For the top international players to keep going and going and going over a period of so many years is going to be impossible.”
Asked whether strikes were the answer, Shearer replied: “I’m not sure strikes work with the general public.
“There are tougher jobs out there, you know? But in terms of keeping the quality that we all want, then I think (the public) do understand that.
“It’s a very difficult conversation saying that players play too much football. Because the vast majority of people will turn around and say ‘well I get up at six and I don’t get in until seven, I spend 12-hour shifts in a factory’.”
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has floated the idea of giving players individual holidays to help tackle burnout, and Shearer said: “It’s up to the managers to try and manage this situation until something can be resolved.”
Clarence Seedorf, who will be one of the pundits working on Amazon’s UK coverage of the Champions League, believes there is a fine balance to be struck and that simply inserting periods of total rest can be counterproductive.
The Dutchman, who won Champions League titles with Ajax, Real Madrid and AC Milan, said: “There has to be a certain limit, like seven or nine matches maximum, then you have two weeks where there’s no matches happening, but you have to train. You need to train.
“You need to put gas in for you to perform. If you continue to drive the car, the car will break, it’s as simple as that. So I hope they will listen to us.”
Amazon’s deal gives it first pick of Tuesday night matches in the new league phase of the Champions League up to and including the semi-finals.
The draw for the league phase will take place on August 29, with Amazon’s first match in the league phase to be aired on September 17.
