ECA not to join international calendar talks

The European Club Association will not be joining a meeting on March 5 at FIFA House in Zurich on the international match calendar from 2015 onwards up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. FIFA has invited all stakeholders involved in world football to discuss issues related to the calendar which includes the release of players by their respective clubs for international tournaments, qualifiers and friendlies.

The relationship between the European Club Association and world football governing body FIFA hasn't been the best and the ECA believes that FIFA along with the national FA's pack the yearly schedule with too many dates for qualifiers and friendlies, currently 12 to 13 a year plus World Cup's and continental championships.

Over 200 European football clubs are part of the ECA and they say their chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and general secretary Michele Centenaro declined invitations from FIFA to attend the meeting on March 5.

THE ECA has an own meeting set for February 27/28 in Warsaw, Poland where they will be presenting their own proposal for an international calendar after getting inputs from their member clubs.

Now with the ECA to go unrepresented at the FIFA meeting a week later, one will have to see if their proposal will come-up for discussions or not.

ECA wants August FIFA date scrapped

The chairman of the European Club Association, Karl Heinz Rummenigge, in an interview this week with German sports weekly Kicker said that FIFA should consider of scrapping the August FIFA international match date especially after World Cup's and European Championships to help the clubs in their pre-season training.

Rummenigge said in the interview, "We must have two months without internationals after Euro tournaments and World Cups so that the clubs can work properly."

The ECA and FIFA have been working together to improve the calendar and general scheduling of matches in the common interest of clubs and international football. One of the first results is the switch of qualifier dates from a Saturday/Wednesday format to a Friday/Tuesday format to allow players from around the world to come back to their respective clubs a day earlier. In the past especially South American players often returned just a day before their next club matches on Fridays/Saturdays.

Now the ECA hopes that FIFA considers the issue of pre-season training of clubs and their problems especially after big tournaments to bring in their international players, who go late into their holidays which means that players also join late for pre-season training. The cancellation of the August match date would help the clubs and their coaches with the build-up to the seasons ahead.

The other issue which interests Rummenigge not only as the ECA chairman but also as the chairman of Bayern Munich is the insurance of players on international duty for their respective national teams. This could help resolve problems with injuries sustained by players on international duty. Bayern currently are unhappy about the long injury lay-off of Dutch international Arjen Robben, who came back injured to Bayern from the World Cup and the Dutch are not forced by FIFA regulations to compensate the club for such an instance.