With the ongoing Fifa Club World Cup witnessing extreme heat conditions, the global players’ union has called for the need to extend the half-time breaks to 20 minutes. The Fifpro says the time has come for additional measures to be put in place to protect the players from the exhaustive conditions.
As of now, in tournaments held during the summer, Fifa protocols are in place to have a three-minute cooling break in each half to protect players from hot conditions. And Fifpro’s medical director, Dr Vincent Gouttebarge, has said an extended half-time break would provide a necessary additional tool in helping to keep players’ core temperatures within their normal range.
“A cooling break generally lasts three minutes and they are designed to decrease the [player’s] temperature through the use of ice,” he said. “But we are lacking the evidence in terms of what is the optimal duration for a cooling break. A half-time of 15 minutes might not be enough to decrease the core temperature. So a lot of research is being done into alternative mitigation strategies and it could be that a half-time of 20 minutes is significant. It has been shown [to work] in the laboratory. Together with the national [players’] union in Portugal, we are going to test this kind of mitigation strategy in August.”
At the Club World Cup currently underway in the US, several players and coaches have spoken about the heat factor with the matches being played at 400C. With next year’s Fifa World Cup also set to be played during the same period there are concerns about the players well being as the temperatures could be way higher than what it was in Qatar, which hosted the previous World Cup.
Fifpro’s general secretary, Alex Phillips, said the organisation had been engaging with Fifa over the issue during the past fortnight and that progress had been made. “We are partially happy because Fifa have been quite responsive once the tournament was under way. So they have actually modified how they have been dealing with heat during the matches based on Fifpro’s input.
“Obviously, it would have been better if that had happened in advance, but it’s better that they have adapted and they’ve put in place various different mitigation measures. There’s additional water around the pitch, towels and so on, and the threshold for the cooling breaks has come down. So there has been a positive reaction from Fifa, which is good.
“But going forward, it’s not just Fifa. It’s any competition organiser staging tournaments in this kind of heat. Their protocols [need to] reflect more of the good practice in Australia, US and other countries that deal with this week after week in their national leagues.”
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The MLS which takes in the US doesn’t host any fixtures mid-day in Florida and similarly, Down Under in Australia, there are thresholds to delay or postpone the matches.
Most of the compliant have come from European teams, which believe the heat conditions give an edge to South American teams. And Philips said European teams have to get used to the weather as football’s packed calendar means there is action right through the 12 months. “I think the evolution we’ve seen in recent years is basically the football is played 12 months of the year,” he said. “So winter, summer, European winter, we’re going 12 months a year, unfortunately.”
