EXCLUSIVE: International footballers are at breaking point, says PFA chief

PFA chief executive Maheta Molango on Sunday night claimed that international players are at ‘breaking point’ after a new report revealed that those involved in last year’s World Cup spent an average of eight days longer out through injury following the mid-season tournament in Qatar.

Premier League stars suffered the most from injury after the World Cup, with 49 missing matches the following month, which Molango called ‘unsustainable’.

The third annual injury report from global insurance company Howden published on Sunday reveals that World Cup injuries saw players sidelined for an average of 11.35 days before the competition in October 2022, a figure which rose to 19.41 days in the month after the tournament in January 2023. The 49 Premier League players who were ruled out with injury immediately afterwards compared to 46 in the Bundesliga, 18 in La Liga and 12 in Serie A.

Howden have calculated that the cost to clubs across Europe’s top five leagues of player injuries rose by 30 per cent from the 2021-22 to the 2022-23 season, from £484million to £616m.

While the overall number of injuries fell last season from 4,006 to 3,985 the cost rose significantly, with Premier League clubs suffering most with a £255m loss according to Howden, a £70.84m increase on the 2021-22 season.

Howden attribute the increasing number of days lost to injury to the impact of a mid-season World Cup, which Molango described as an ‘alarming wake-up call’ given the 2034 tournament in Saudi Arabia will also take place during the European winter.

‘The latest injury report following the Qatar World Cup is another wake-up call,’ Molango told Mail Sport. ‘It shows the reality of football’s unrelenting calendar on player health. The continued expansion of