BURN-OUT FEARS LEAD TO FRESH CALL FOR WINTER BREAK
THE schedule shouldered by star players like Celtic and Scotland captain Scott Brown is one of the primary reasons why Scottish football authorities are forging ahead with talks over a revamp of the domestic season featuring a significant winter break.
If fit and selected for every club and country outing this season, Brown would play 41 competitive matches between his mid-July Champions League qualifying kick-off against Stjarnan and December 30. This slate of games comes on the back of a 20-day break separating the Republic of Ireland v Scotland sign-off and starting a pre-season friendly for Celtic against Dukla Prague.
With Aberdeen in action on June 24 at Brechin City to start their Europa League build-up 10 days after Euro 2016 qualifiers and UEFA making extensive use of June dates for their new Nations Cup concept to replace international friendlies in the future, the near year-round diary has become a matter of distress for SPFL bosses noting the strain placed on the top players.
Key figures including SFA, SPFL and club representatives met last Tuesday for the latest round of talks aimed at finding a way to let the Ladbrokes Premiership season breathe for three weeks, potentially from next season, in the middle of an increasingly cluttered calendar.
Progress has also been made on an idea for League Cup group stages to be played in July to give broadcasters and supporters competitive football at the height of summer — effectively ending calls for Scotland to switch to a ‘summer football’ season from early spring to late autumn.
One core issue is concern that more players will call a premature end to their national team careers earlier in their 30s because of the strain placed on their bodies in the carefree 20s playing nearly 12 months of football.
‘There is concern that the top players at the top clubs risk overplaying,’ noted SPFL secretary Iain Blair. ‘So the issue we’re trying to address is fixture congestion at that level.
‘OK, Scott Brown has had the odd game off but if he was to play all he was eligible for, he’d play 40 by Christmas. And he’s the example because he’s playing European club football, is a regular international and plays all league and cup matches.
‘There are others. What it does to them, I don’t know. But once one gets into the early 30s, there’s a risk that they will retire from international football.
‘We’re soon going to have internationals every June — usually two of them as a regular fixture of the calendar. They’re all double dates now. No singles, no friendlies. If you take the June internationals and the stage at which our bigger clubs get into Europe — early July — the chance to have a break in the summer just isn’t there.
‘So we need to find another way of providing one. I’m not saying there will be a winter break in 2016/17 but it’s certainly going to become a feature again. We see January as the main period of an extended break.’
If the League Cup facelift is to be introduced for next season then the framework would need to be agreed within the next eight to 10 weeks. The group concept would probably involve regionalised, seeded sections with European participants coming in for the knockouts and may allow the semi-finals to be played before Christmas. Bosses don’t want the Premiership to begin any earlier because that would create further scheduling issues for clubs exposed to lengthy travel in their European qualifying efforts. So the League Cup groups fill a competitive domestic void.
‘It’s providing games when fans and broadcasters want it — late summer,’ said Blair. ‘Having a meaningful, competitive series of fixtures in July has attractions.
‘The objective is to deliver interesting, competitive football for fans in July and gives us enough breathing space to create a proper break, certainly for the Premiership, in January.’