Concerns have been raised about the welfare of Barcelona’s teenage sensation Lamine Yamal and the “alarming” demands on him at such a young age.
The 18-year-old Spain international is already regarded as one of the best players in the world and has broken a slew of records since bursting onto the scene when he was just 15.
But global players’ union Fifpro believes the workload placed on Yamal could risk his “long-term development and well-being.”
According to a study published by Fifpro on Monday, the forward had made 130 senior appearances by 18 – far outstripping the stats of other prodigious young players from the past.
By comparison, Spain great Andres Iniesta had made 40 appearances by that age. Yamal’s Barcelona teammate Gavi had made 60.
“It’s certainly alarming,” said Darren Burgess, chair of Fifpro’s high-performance advisory network. He said players are still growing and developing up to the age of 24 and 25.
“To expose them to excessive load at that time is almost certainly to expose them to greater injury risk,” he said.
Yamal became the youngest player to win the European Championship at the age of 17. He was the youngest player to score in Spain’s top flight, Spain’s youngest international player and the youngest to make 100 appearances for Barcelona.
Last week he won the Kopa trophy for the best young player in the world for the second year running.
But in its latest Player Workload Monitoring report, Fifpro highlights Yamal as an example of the demands being placed on modern players. The union wants greater safeguards throughout the game, including guaranteed breaks for players in the offseason.
It points to basketball and baseball as sports that provide sufficient recuperation times between seasons.
The report states some top European players can get as little as three weeks off. By comparison it says an NBA finalist has 14 weeks off and a Major League baseball finalist has 15.
Premier League player Chris Wood believes more rest time in soccer could see players go on for longer, like 40-year-old NBA great LeBron James.
“It shows that other sports obviously get their rest and downtime a lot more, which is great for the body and even better for the mental side of sport. And it shows that athletes could potentially play longer into their career,” he said. “You look at the NBA and you’ve got LeBron James that’s playing into his 40s now.
“We’ve had a couple that can push into the 40s like (Cristiano) Ronaldo, but you’d like to see it more often and you never know with that rest period it could potentially happen in the future.
This is Fifpro’s first monitoring report since the expansion of the Champions League and the new look Club World Cup. It’s European division, along with national leagues in Europe, filed a formal complaint against Fifa over the world governing body’s governance and decision-making.
The report cites players like Luka Modric, Federico Valverde and Fabian Ruiz played more than 70 games last season. It says 55 games in a campaign is categorised as “excessive load” and 40 to 54 is “high.”
“For football to protect its most valuable assets, the players, reform is needed,” Burgess said. “Establishing minimum standards for both rest and pre-season preparation would not weaken the game – it would strengthen it by ensuring that those on the pitch are fit, available, and able to perform at their best.
“Other sports have shown that safeguarding recovery is possible. Football must follow suit.”
Fifpro also believes greater protocols will be required in the future to cope with extreme heat.
