There really is no place for this phoney tourney
JUST 14 days after Roger Hunt won the World Cup with England on July 30, 1966, he scored for Liverpool in the Charity Shield match.
His international team-mate Alan Ball, who covered every inch of Wembley in the Final, scored on his Everton debut in the opening match of the season a week later.
All of Sir Alf Ramsey’s squad were in League action three weeks after their Wembley triumph. They’d gone back to pre-season training at their clubs after just a handful of days off.
What happened 51 years ago is worth mentioning because it shows that footballers have always had it hard, even when they weren’t at the mercy of ruthless TV schedulers and demanding commercial partners.
Hunt, Ball and the rest didn’t have to fly halfway round the world to sell shirts or boost a club’s Twitter following. They only ever had to play weekend games at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.
But virtually all the starting XI in that final had played around 60 matches that season and would then play another 50-odd with just one week off.
They just got on with it. No-one complained. No-one called for the start of the season to be moved back.
Thankfully, times have changed and there is now a much greater acknowledgement of players’ welfare.
In the age of sports science, burn-out is the buzzword. Players have to be protected.
Which brings us to the Confederations Cup, currently being played in Russia.
Why is it on the calendar when international players could be taking a break in the summer between the Euros and the World Cup?
If by some miracle England were competing as European Champions, instead of Portugal, we’d have been talking endlessly about exhausted players and the knock-on effect for their clubs.
As it happens, there are just half-a-dozen Premier League players involved, so the impact in England at least will be minimal.
But what possible relevance does a tournament have when World Champions Germany send a second-string squad and Australia are deemed to be in Asia while neighbours New Zealand are in Oceania?
The competition didn’t exist until 1997 and is another FIFA money-making scheme, staged for the benefit of worldwide TV audiences and sponsors and to allow the country hosting the World Cup the following year to have a dress rehearsal.
It’s not 1966. Players do need rest. They don’t need this phoney tournament and it should be scrapped.