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| June 26, 2002 | Wednesday | Rabi-us-Sani 14, 1423 |
Players contest too many games, says FIFA
YOKOHAMA, Japan, June 25: Professional footballers are risking injury because they are playing too many games, FIFA medical officials said on Tuesday as they unveiled research on injuries at the World Cup finals.
Jiri Dvorak, the world governing body’s chief medical officer at the tournament, said there had been an increase in the number of players getting injured in matches in “non-contact situations” — injuries like strained muscles when no tackles are involved.
“Professional footballers are definitely playing too many games,” Dvorak said. “If there is not sufficient time to recover or they don’t recover completely, there can be an accumulation of injuries that can lead to one major injury.
“Some players are playing between 80 to 90 games a season. That is too much.”
Former France midfielder Michel Platini said on Tuesday that the big players arrived at the tournament “too tired and with too many games in their legs”.
He told the Spanish sports daily Mundo Deportivo that the national associations should have designed their domestic league calendar to give players more time to recover before the finals.
“Everyone had the chance to organise their respective calendars to take account of the World Cup, but almost no one chose to do so,” he said.
“The result is that we are seeing a tournament in which physical strength is triumphing over technical skill and in which defensive teams are overcoming those that go in search of goals.”
Dvorak is keen to launch a scientific investigation into injuries and burn-out among top players after complaints that the quality of the World Cup has been spoiled by the sight of players on their last legs.
He has run a special survey during the finals analysing every injury. The average number of injuries per game (2.6) is around the same as at the 1998 finals in France (2.4).
But the number of non-contact injuries totals 26 percent of all the injuries compared to an average of 14 percent measured at 12 other tournaments organised by world governing body FIFA.
Thirty-six percent of the injuries at the finals were caused by contact with opponents — compared to 37 percent at the other 12 tournaments. Thirty-eight percent were caused by fouls — compared to 49 percent at the other competitions.
Players are still taking anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers in order to get fit in time for games, Dvorak said. But he said there was no sign that the use of the drugs, which are not banned, was increasing.
“That is a positive sign, “ he said.
World Cup players have undergone blood as well as urine tests after games as scientists look for the abuse of banned substances like stamina-boosting erythropoietin (EPO) or darbepoetin — the drug at the centre of scandals at February’s Salt Lake Olympics.
But no player has tested positive so far, officials said.—Reuters
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