Premier League Stars' 55-Game Seasons 'Not Sustainable' — SkimNews
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- 25 Premier League players called up internationally played the full 360 minutes across four games during the recent break, with 13 of them having also featured at the World Cup.
- Virgil van Dijk logged 55 games for Liverpool last season, while he, Declan Rice, Morgan Rogers, and Harry Kane each exceeded 4,000 minutes in all competitions in 2025-26.
- Five England players — Cole Palmer, Marcus Rashford, Rice, Kobbie Mainoo, and Tino Livramento — withdrew from the squad, as did Germany's Kai Havertz and France captain Kylian Mbappe.
- PFA CEO Maheta Molango called the system "sick" and demanded a mandatory three-week summer break plus a three-week retraining period each year.
- Dr Dave Richardson of the University of Lincoln said the schedule is unsustainable because no single governing body controls the calendar, with clubs, leagues, and federations all "vying for the spotlight."
- Dr Chris James of Cardiff University said men's football's culture of "looking like they are coping" around mental health is "like going back in time," and reported that players are turning to snus to stay focused.
- The Club World Cup has been added to the calendar, the World Cup is potentially expanding, and no competition has reduced its fixture count.
Why it matters: With marquee players withdrawing from the most prestigious matches of their careers and experts saying the system is broken, the absence of any single body empowered to cut fixtures means reform is structurally unlikely — even as the calendar expands with the new Club World Cup and a possible larger World Cup.
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