In December 2023, the presence of 3,000 women at the Tehran derby between Persepolis and Esteghlal seemed to indicate progress in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Female fans had been banned from attending men’s matches across the country since 1981, two years after the nation’s Islamic Revolution. For more than four decades, female protestors and campaigners tried to circumvent the ban — often by dressing up as men. The state responded with arrests, beatings and forced exiles.

Despite women returning to some football stadiums in restricted numbers, they are still not universally allowed to attend matches in Iran. They remain forbidden in several stadiums and there is no clarity from Iranian authorities or FIFA on their attendance, though the two parties are in ongoing dialogue about these issues.

Following the Tehran derby, FIFA president Gianni Infantino wrote on Instagram in December: “Thanks to the ongoing dialogue between FIFA and the Islamic Republic of Iran Football Federation (FFIRI), progress is being made.” In the same post, Infantino said that at a recent meeting with then-Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi — who died in a helicopter crash in May of this year — he had raised the “development of women’s football in the country and progress made regarding the presence of women in football stadiums”.

FIFA’s president did not mention that tickets for women remain capped at three per cent of the stadium capacity or that the mixing of men and women inside stadiums is forbidden. Sections for women are usually tucked away in corners with the worst views of the pitch. Questions also remain about availability and whether many attendees are selected by the Iranian FA and authorities.

Infantino’s heralding of his and FIFA’s role in Iran’s changed stance has been criticised by campaigners. The Athletic spoke to multiple Iranian activists who have campaigned for change for more than a decade. One described FIFA’s stance as a “slap in the face to Iranian women”. Another alleged Infantino was “rewriting the story”. Human Rights Watch said FIFA’s positioning was “shameless”, while a former FIFA executive member who advocated for Iranian women described the return of women to stadiums as “not real”.

Since Saudi Arabia lifted its national ban on women attending men’s football matches in 2018, Iran had stood alone in banning women. The return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan has diminished the rights and freedoms of females across that country and females can no longer attend football matches there. While the latest loosening of the ban in Iran is cause for cautious optimism, questions remain.

In February 2016, Infantino was elected president of world football’s governing body. The Swiss-Italian swept into office on a platform of reform after his predecessor Sepp Blatter was ejected from office by the independent FIFA Ethics Committee amid a corruption scandal. In March 2018, Infantino visited Iran for the first time in his presidency to meet the nation’s then-president Hassan Rouhani and play a mediating role in an ongoing diplomatic dispute between Iranian and Saudi clubs. He also attended the Tehran derby at the Azadi stadium.

Azadi means ‘freedom’ in Persian, a cruel irony for Iranian women who had been continually denied access to the national stadium. In 2006, the ban was lifted by then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who argued it would “promote chastity”, but the decision was reversed within a month by the nation’s supreme leader. The ban is not written into law but has become a practice enforced by Iran’s ‘morality police’, who enforce Sharia.

As Infantino watched from the stands in 2018, 35 women were detained outside the Azadi for trying to enter. Iranian interior ministry spokesman Seyed Salman Samani said the women were not arrested but transferred to a “proper place” by police. Campaigners criticised Infantino for attending the match and for not publicly addressing the issue during his visit. In 2015, his predecessor, Blatter, had called on Iranian officials to end the ban: “This cannot continue,” Blatter said. “Hence, my appeal to the Iranian authorities; open the nation’s football stadiums to women.”

Iran’s long-standing ban on females attending matches contravenes FIFA’s rules, which state that discrimination based on gender — including exclusion or interference with access for women and girls to stadiums — is “strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion”. In addition, in 2017, FIFA adopted a Human Rights policy pledging to “apply effective leverage” to strengthen “human rights in or through football”.

Open Stadiums is an organisation that has been fighting for women to be allowed to attend matches since 2005. It is run by Sara — a pseudonym she has adopted as she could face 15 years in prison if discovered. “One aim was to negotiate and advocate towards the government and religious leaders,” she tells The Athletic. “The other side was to ensure the population knew their rights. When so many of your rights are banned, not being allowed into stadiums may not feel so important.”

In the early years, online campaigning was virtually non-existent. Protests swept across Iran in 2009 amid the fallout of presidential election results. Many women’s rights campaigners went into exile and it was not until 2013 that campaigning could resume, though it was something of a false start. “After a few years, and especially when Infantino came in, we began to realise FIFA did not care about us,” Sara says. “The subject did not interest them.” Of Infantino’s visit in 2018 and the arrests of female football fans, Sara says: “It was really humiliating.”

Maryam Shojaei, who founded the #NoBan4Women movement, has been campaigning to end the stadium ban on women for a decade. A Canadian citizen, she has travelled to Iranian national team matches away from home to brandish banners calling for the male-only rule to end. Speaking to The Athletic, she was critical of FIFA’s positioning after last season’s December derby.

“If they want to take credit for change, they must take responsibility for what happened before,” she says. “FIFA refused to take responsibility for years for all the suffering of Iranian women and now they suddenly want to take credit. They did not impose their own rules for so many years.”

Immediately after Infantino attended the 2018 Tehran derby, he took a flight to speak at FIFA’s fourth conference for equality and inclusion in Zurich. Although it was not on the agenda, the ban on women in Iranian stadiums was referenced by the FIFA president. “I went to the president of Iran and I asked him to please consider giving access to women in the stadiums,” Infantino said. “He promised me that this will happen; I hope and I am confident. I was promised that women in Iran will have access to football stadiums soon.”

Justifying his attendance at the men-only match, Infantino said at the time: “There are two ways to deal with this matter: either we criticise, we sanction, we condemn, we don’t speak and we cut relations. Or we go there and have a discussion and try to convince the leaders of the country that they should give (women) access to stadiums. I went for the second option.”

Sara from Open Stadiums describes the aftermath of Infantino’s 2018 visit as the beginning of a chain of events that began to capture global attention. “Many teenage girls and young women began to dress up as men to get into stadiums,” she explains. “Some became internationally famous on social media.” When authorities became aware of attendance, security was stepped up and multiple arrests followed. Many of those detained later fled Iran.

“Our aim was not just to watch football, dressed as men, but to go as women,” Sara explained. “Our movement was about equality. But these incidents brought attention.” One woman who dressed as a man was Sahar Khodayari. In March 2019, the 29-year-old went to watch her team, Esteghlal, play the UAE’s Al Ain in the Asian Champions League, in what was their first home game of the season. She had been inspired by others dressing up as men and after following online make-up tutorials, attempted to enter the Azadi.

Khodayari was identified and detained by the police. She spent a week in Gharchak, a disused chicken farm-turned-prison. Conditions were said to be overcrowded and unhygienic.

The Esteghlal match where Khodayari was detained (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)

On September 2, 2019, Khodayari heard she would face charges. Women being banned from stadiums is not written in law, but she was charged with failing to respect Islamic hijab regulations. The sentence was a maximum of two years in prison. She left the court and set herself on fire on the judiciary steps. She died in hospital one week later, having suffered burns across her body. An Iranian government official later denied that she was to face charges.

Khodayari has posthumously become known as the ‘Blue Girl’ — referencing the colours of Esteghlal, the club she wanted to watch.

On June 6, 2019, three months before Khodayari’s death, Iran played Syria in Tehran. Women attempting to enter the Azadi were blocked and detained by security forces. Later that month, Infantino responded. In partnership with the Asian Football Confederation, he wrote to the Iranian FA to demand stadium access for women. He highlighted how “a number of women seeking to attend the match (against Syria) were detained by security forces for a number of hours”.

Infantino’s letter said: “I would be very grateful if you could inform FIFA, at your earliest convenience but no later than 15 July 2019, as to the concrete steps which both the FFIRI (Iranian FA) and the Iranian state authorities will now be taking in order to ensure that all Iranian and foreign women who wish to do so will be allowed to buy tickets and to attend the matches of the qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, which will start in September 2019.”

On June 15, 2019, two spectators were removed from the Women’s World Cup match between Canada and New Zealand in Grenoble for wearing clothing displaying the message: “Let Iranian Women Enter Their Stadiums”. Three days later, FIFA released a statement stating that the message was a “social, not political” one and therefore should have been allowed inside the stadium.

In October 2019, Iranian authorities allowed women to purchase tickets for Iran’s match against Cambodia at the Azadi. Despite them being released at midnight, on a different website to normal and only a week before the match, women bought tickets in droves. It is estimated that 3,000 fans attended. As was the case for the December 2023 derby, women were only allowed into one section of the stadium. FIFA operated the gate. Footage of the match showed how vast sections of the stadium were empty. Iran won 14-0. Amnesty International described that match as “nothing more than a publicity stunt rather than a meaningful step to lifting the ban altogether”.

Any momentum following the Cambodia match soon dissipated. In November 2019, anti-government protests broke out across Iran. Initially a reaction to gasoline prices, the movement quickly extended into wider opposition to the nation’s ruling elite. More than 1,500 deaths were reported. In January 2020, amid escalating tensions between Iran and the United States, a civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Kyiv was shot down by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards over the Iranian capital — Iran said it was a mistake, having thought the plane was a U.S. missile. All 176 people on board were killed. Iran was declared a no-fly zone. Two months later, the Covid-19 pandemic began.

In March 2022, women were denied entry to the Imam Reza Stadium in Mashhad — known as Iran’s most conservative major city — for the World Cup qualifier between Iran and Lebanon. Women with tickets say they were pepper-sprayed by security forces. Unlike the match against Cambodia in 2019, FIFA had no security operation in place. The Iranian FA later issued a statement saying that “due to a lack of preparation” they were not able to accommodate women at the match. They claimed only nine women had bought tickets with many more “fake” tickets distributed among fans. All subsequent matches have fallen under the Iranian FA’s jurisdiction.

In late 2022, a fresh wave of protests swept across Iran. It followed the September 13 arrest of Mahsa Amini by the ‘morality police’, who claimed she was wearing her hijab incorrectly. The 22-year-old was taken to the Vozara detention centre. Her brother, arrested alongside her, was informed she would be released within an hour. That evening, Amini’s family were told she had suffered a heart attack and brain seizure. Transported to hospital, there were visible signs she had been beaten. Three days later, she was pronounced dead.

The incident placed the rights and freedoms of Iranian women back in the public consciousness. With Iran’s participation in the World Cup less than two months away, football could provide a global platform for the issues to be amplified and brought to an international audience. FIFA was under pressure to exclude Iran.

Two weeks after Amini’s death, Open Stadiums wrote to FIFA to demand Iran be “immediately expelled from the World Cup” as “Iranian women remain locked out of our ‘beautiful game’”. The open letter, addressed to Infantino, read: “Iranian women trust neither the Islamic Republic’s authorities nor the Iranian Football Federation that the Azadi stadium will remain open to them after the FIFA World Cup 2022 concludes.” The letter highlighted that the Vozara detention centre where Amini was taken was the same one “where female fans are usually brought to and tortured if we dare to try to attend a football game”.

FIFA had already banned Russia from the World Cup, removing them from the qualification process after the nation’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Speaking to The Athletic in 2024, with Russia still banned by FIFA, Open Stadiums said FIFA’s decision to ban Russia but not Iran was “eye-opening” and felt it re-enforced its fears that the organisation was “not paying attention” to what was happening in Iran. “These are regimes that have stable dictators, no matter how many people get killed,” it said. “This is our reality.”

In October 2022, one month before the World Cup, a letter was written by law firm Ruiz-Huerta & Crespo to FIFA on behalf of a group of former and current Iranian sports figures, calling for the nation to be removed from the World Cup. The letter read: “Football, which should be a safe place for everyone, is not a safe space for women or even men.” The letter continued: “Women have been consistently denied access to stadia across the country and systematically excluded from the football ecosystem in Iran, which sharply contrasts with FIFA’s values and statutes.”

Iran played in the World Cup and were eliminated at the group stage. In their opening match against England, Iran’s footballers did not sing their national anthem — played out to audible boos from those in the crowd. The nation’s anthem expresses its desire for the Islamic Republic to live forever.

Supporters hold up Mahsa Amini’s name at the World Cup match between Iran and USA (Virginie Lefour/Belga Mag/AFP/Getty Images)

The message ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ was displayed on an Iranian flag and on tops by some fans. One fan held up an Iran top with ‘Mahsa Amini, 22’ imprinted on the back. There were allegations that Qatari authorities were preventing Iranian fans from carrying the ‘Lion and Sun’ symbol on Iran’s tricolour, the national flag before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Three days after Iran’s opening-game defeat against England, Voria Ghafouri — who was part of the nation’s 2018 World Cup squad — was arrested by Iranian security forces after using social media to call for the government to end its violence against Kurds. A vocal critic of the Iranian regime, Ghafouri was deemed to have “tarnished the reputation of the national team and spread propaganda against the state”.

GO DEEPER

‘I don’t feel safe’: Detained at the World Cup for wearing a ‘Women Life Freedom’ T-shirt

Footballers being punished for speaking out against Iran’s regime is not uncommon. Former Bayern Munich players Ali Karimi and Ali Daei, Iran’s two greatest footballers, are among them. Karimi posted on social media in 2022 that not even holy water could “wash away this disgrace” of Amini’s death. The 127-time capped midfielder, based in Dubai, was charged in absentia by Iran with “encouraging riots” and his house in the nation was seized by the Iranian state. Iran imposed a travel ban on Karimi, his wife and her family during the 2022 anti-government protests, according to leaked documents seen by the BBC. Daei, also based in the United Arab Emirates, said an international flight in December was rerouted to prevent his wife and daughter from leaving Iran to join him on holiday.

Shojaei, the founder of #NoBan4Women, who did not reveal her real identity for several years, tells The Athletic:  “This has become a very political issue, the price of talking about the stadium issue is so high. It is not about women going to a stadium for the authorities, it is about defeating a system and defeating an ideology.”

Her brother was former national team captain Masoud Shojaei, who spent 15 years representing Iran and had spells at Osasuna, Las Palmas and AEK Athens. During his playing career, Masoud Shojaei frequently spoke of the ban and his regret that his family were not allowed in stadiums to watch him play. In one widely shared clip on social media, he said: “I think it is the dream of many Iranian women who are football fans (to be in the stadium). I think if (the stadium ban is lifted) we would have to build a stadium that could hold 200,000 spectators because we see the flood of passion from our women.”

Masoud Shojaei’s last appearance for Iran came in 2019, but the current generation of footballers have been vocal in highlighting the ban on women. In September 2022, striker Sardar Azmoun — currently at Bayer Leverkusen and one of Iran’s highest-profile stars — wrote on social media: “Due to Iranian national team regulations, I couldn’t make any comment and statement, but I can’t tolerate this any longer. They might put me out of the national team. I don’t care, I’ll sacrifice it for the freedom of Iranian women.” Azmoun’s posts were later deleted.

Six months earlier, after women were denied access to Iran’s win over Lebanon, Feyenoord forward Alireza Jahanbakhsh said in a live interview on state television: “I hope that from now on during home matches, our dear women can also spectate, so we can make them happy as well.” His comments were edited out when the game was re-aired later.

In March 2024, Persepolis wrote (in what was also released as a club statement) to the Iranian FA to request the “creation of better facilities for women in the Azadi”. The club acknowledged that women were “facing problems due to their ticket platform” and added that “we hope that they will be assigned a more suitable area with a better view to watch our games”.

After Esteghlal’s win at Aluminium Arak in the Iranian Premier League on April 12, their goalkeeper and captain Hossein Hosseini embraced a female fan on the pitch. The woman was not wearing the compulsory hijab, with Iranian media reporting she had been attempting to evade security forces by entering the playing area. Video footage shows Hosseini gesturing for the fan to embrace him, with the Iran international then making a hand gesture for security forces to back off. Security personnel separated the two, with a confrontation involving several people.

Hosseini was subsequently suspended for one match and given a fine of three billion rials ($4,500, £3,618). It was deemed by authorities to be “unprofessional and beyond the legal duties of a player”. Later in April, Iran’s Football Federation said women would not be allowed into Tractor’s 67,000-capacity Tabriz stadium until further notice. “This was a simple management issue,” says Sara from Open Stadiums. “The previous match, they took all purses off women as they did not want them in the stadium. Then it became chaotic after, with many purses lost. So instead of fixing the issue, it was easier to ban women from attending.”

Sara from Open Stadiums describes Infantino meeting Iran’s president Raisi in September 2023 as a “horrible” moment, highlighting that it coincided with the anniversary of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ uprising following Amini’s death. “It is eye-opening, honestly,” Sara says. “It does not matter that there are deaths. You can see that regimes are trying to build a new image through sport.” Asked about Infantino’s post, Sara described it as “rewriting the story”. “The reality is that for years, we have pressured Infantino to make him realise we are getting killed and being imprisoned just because we want to watch football.”

Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, told The Athletic that Infantino and FIFA were “shameless in claiming credit for modest progress” in Iran. “Any progress is due entirely to the courage of women’s rights activists and fans who were forced to dress as men, write formal Human Rights legal complaints to FIFA, and risk their lives to go to stadiums for many years,” Worden said. “The Iranian FA is actually the one enforcing this deadly ban and jailing women and girls, whose only crime is to cheer their favourite teams.”

For Open Stadiums, more progress is required. There is still segregation in stadiums, which does not apply to cinemas, theatres or other public venues in Iran. Not only does that appear to conflict with FIFA’s statutes, but it also causes practical problems. The entrances to the separate sections are far apart, with mobile phone reception poor due to large crowds. This results in families being separated and unable to contact each other.

The organisation is also pushing for no capped capacity on females, which is another element of FIFA’s statutes that are being breached. There are suspicions from campaigners that only a fraction of the women in stadiums have bought tickets online. There is a concern from activists that many of those attending are selected by the authorities and many obtain access through the Iranian FA. “There needs to be clear and transparent accounting of how many tickets are sold through the websites because this is not clear,” Sara explains.

Women are still not allowed into multiple stadiums across Iran. Open Stadiums say this is the case at Sepahan, who play in a 75,000-capacity stadium and reached this season’s Asian Champions League knockout phase. Some local city authorities argue they cannot accommodate females because the stadiums are not equipped to host them. However, Sara calls this “an excuse from conservative cities to continue to prevent women from attending”.

Iran’s presidential elections in July 2024 brought a victory for Masoud Pezeshkian, leading on a reform platform. A new head of government may herald internal change, with a new ministry of sport and hope that women’s rights will be addressed.

In December 2023, Iran’s women’s team climbed to a record high of 59th in the FIFA world rankings. However, men remain banned from watching female football matches because authorities have insisted on separating both sexes from attending the other’s football matches. This limits sponsorship opportunities and TV coverage, starving the women’s game of visibility and money.

For Open Stadiums, other protest organisations and females across Iran, the fight for football equality is far from over.

In a statement to The Athletic about the issues raised in this article, FIFA said: “FIFA believes in engagement and dialogue and this approach has shown results as demonstrated by the obvious progress since 2018.

“This progress has been gradual, with international matches, then domestic league matches in Tehran, and finally more and more domestic league matches across Iran now seeing women in attendance. According to the latest reports, close to half of all stadiums and matches in Iran’s top league saw women attending matches in the past season. This is definitely progress after a period of 40 years of a complete ban on women in stadiums.

“However, this is not the end of the road. FIFA has clearly expressed that it looks towards a future where all girls and women wishing to attend football matches in the Islamic Republic of Iran will be free to do so. This is why the dialogue with the Iranian FA and the authorities continues. The matter is regularly raised in FIFA’s exchanges with the FFIRI at all levels, not only by the FIFA President. Our dialogue with FFIRI has been progressing over the past years, with FFIRI delivering on many of their commitments and gradually improving access for women to stadiums across the country.”

The Iranian government did not offer comment and the FFIRI did not respond to a request for comment.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)

American water polo star Maggie Steffens and her family were dealt a serious blow days before the Paris Olympics got underway as her sister-in-law died.

Lulu Conner, 26, died Tuesday after traveling to Paris to cheer on Steffens and the rest of the women’s water polo team. Steffens is looking for a fourth consecutive gold medal.

The family described the situation that led to Conner’s death as a “medical emergency.”

“She was so excited for the Olympic Games,” Steffens told The Associated Press. “We’re really close. She’s the light of the world. She just brings so much joy to everyone. She always brings people together.”

Steffens added that playing in games is a helpful distraction from the grief . She had two goals in Team USA’s win over Greece on Saturday. 

“It definitely helps to play,” Steffens said. “I’m like so out of body in a way right now. And I just keep trying to remind myself what Lulu would want and how she would be, you know, how can I embody her spirit the best. And Lulu was somebody that, she gave 150% to everything she did.”

Maggie Steffens scores a goal against Spain at the Summer Olympics, Monday, July 29, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

ALGERIAN JUDOKA FACES INVESTIGATION AFTER MISSING WEIGHT BEFORE MATCH AGAINST ISRAELI OPPONENT

Steffens, the highest-scoring woman in Olympic history, married 31-year-old Bobby Conner in Puerto Rico in November. 

NBC noted during coverage of the opening ceremony that Steffens threw a small bouquet of flowers into the River Seine in remembrance of Conner.

“It’s going to be a really hard couple weeks for all of us,” she said. “My team has been a really big support system for me. I’ve been obviously really struggling, and my husband as well, and his entire family. I mean, it’s a nightmare, and it’s completely shocking. But I think just feeling her spirit here is, like I said, it’s amazing. And I hope that we can make her proud every single day.”

Maggie Steffens talks to reporters during a news conference ahead the Summer Olympics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Paris. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

The United States lost to Spain in Monday’s matchup, 13-11.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The sight of Harry Kane shuffling off the field after an hour of ineffective play in the Euro 2024 final was not how most would have expected his tournament to end.

In truth, he probably shouldn’t have been playing at Euro 2024 at all. Kane missed the end of the Bundesliga season with Bayern Munich because of a back injury and was described by his manager Thomas Tuchel as having a “complete blockade” in his back that “bothers him in everyday movements”. The injury was serious enough that it made him a doubt in their Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid in May.

He wasn’t the only player to be hampered. Jude Bellingham was still suffering from the after-effects of a dislocated shoulder in November and may need surgery at some point. For months, Bellingham has been wearing special strapping on his shoulder that enables him to play freely. Some good news for Real Madrid fans is that Kylian Mbappe is unlikely to need surgery on his nose after breaking it while playing for France at the Euros. He played on with a special mask.

Spanish goalkeeper Unai Simon had an operation on his wrist shortly after the tournament, which had been needed for some time. He managed to get through Spain’s victorious Euro 2024 campaign by using painkilling injections.

It was a similar story at the Copa America. You’ll have seen the pictures of Lionel Messi in tears, his ankle looking about twice the size it should have been after suffering an injury in the final. He had already had to nurse his way to that final after suffering a groin problem in Argentina’s second game against Chile.

His Inter Miami team-mate Luis Suarez will also miss the upcoming MLS All-Star game with what has been described as “knee discomfort”, presumably related to the chronic knee issue he has had to manage for the past few years.

Bournemouth’s Tyler Adams will be on the sidelines when the Premier League season begins after having back surgery. The United States midfielder also played through the issue at Copa America and probably should have had the operation earlier.

“He wanted to play Copa America because it was very important for him,” his Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola said, “but he had restrictions and was still in pain, so two days after they were knocked out, he had surgery.”

But perhaps more than all of that, many of the biggest players just looked exhausted.

“It’s so tough with crazy schedules and then coming together for the end of the season for one last tournament,” said Bellingham after the final. “It’s difficult on the body — mentally and physically you are exhausted.”

Bellingham, 21, played 54 games for club and country in a season that spanned 11 months, from the second week in August to the middle of July. Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti tried to manage Bellingham’s game time, giving him the odd week off here and there, but even when he was left on the bench at times, Ancelotti put up the Jude signal, pressing him into action — shoulder strapping and all.

It’s no wonder Bellingham was tired — but his workload was relatively light compared to others. Manchester United’s seemingly indestructible Bruno Fernandes got through 5,399 minutes last season. William Saliba, an ever-present for Arsenal in the Premier League, and Germany captain Ilkay Gundogan also got more than 5,000 minutes under their belts. “It has been a very demanding season,” said Gundogan during Euro 2024, with some understatement.

Julian Alvarez might not have played the same number of minutes (a ‘mere’ 3,480 for Manchester City), but his schedule has been brutal. His season began on August 11 (August 6 if you count the Community Shield), playing for Manchester City until May, with his longest break between games coming in at 13 days. Fifteen days after the FA Cup final, he appeared in his first pre-Copa game for Argentina. He played two friendlies before starting all but one of their games during the tournament, then, after a luxurious break of 10 days, he was in the team for Argentina’s opening game at the Olympics, that marathon game against Morocco.

The men’s gold medal game is on August 9, so his 2023-24 season could last almost exactly a year, with only a couple of fortnight breaks between games. City play the Community Shield the day after — you hope they don’t demand he hops on the Eurostar to take part in that one.

All of which backs up the point being made by FIFPro, the global players’ union, and some of the leading European leagues as they issue a legal complaint against FIFA, accusing football’s governing body of presiding over an international calendar that is “beyond saturation”.

FIFPro said: “The schedule has become unsustainable for national leagues and a risk for the health of players. FIFA’s decisions over the last years have repeatedly favoured its own competitions and commercial interests, neglected its responsibilities as a governing body, and harmed the economic interests of national leagues and the welfare of players.”

It is worth pointing out that any complaints from Premier League teams about overwhelming scheduling rings slightly hollow. They conduct lengthy pre-season and post-season tours, which involve heavy travel as well as games. Chelsea are playing five games in 13 days in a pre-season tour spanning basically the whole continental United States. Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United flew to Australia the day after the last Premier League season finished.

After Copa America, Julian Alvarez went to the Olympics (Arnaud Finistre/AFP/Getty Images)

The point remains that the approach of FIFA — and most other governing bodies, including UEFA — to scheduling has consistently been ‘more is more’. The expansion of the World Cup from 2026, the revamped Champions League format, the new Club World Cup, the Nations League and whatever other brilliant wheezes they can dream up, all mean it is technically possible for an elite men’s player to play 87 games next season. No player will actually be on the pitch that many times, but it illustrates the point FIFPro is making. There is too much football, and even if you don’t really care about player burnout, the overwhelming amount of games devalues the whole thing.

“You start in August and until May you don’t stop,” said Mikel Oyarzabal, scorer of Spain’s winner in the Euro 2024 final. “Then in June there is the national team and after that a Club World Cup. They will finish up in July and then, a few weeks later, the league starts again. It needs to be turned back, but it is not up to us (players). We have to adapt as best we can.”

Oyarzabal is a good example of why FIFPro has launched this action, beyond the general fatigue and devaluing of the game.

In the summer of 2021, Oyarzabal played at the European Championship and then the Olympics, with 16 days between his last game at the former and the first at the latter. He played 104 minutes of Spain’s defeat in the gold medal match in Japan, then a week later he was back on domestic duty with Real Sociedad. Later that season, he suffered a cruciate ligament injury that kept him out for nine months and made him miss the World Cup.

GO DEEPER

Mikel Oyarzabal’s recovery: Setbacks, contract renewals and leading by example

You could argue there is an element of personal responsibility here: Oyarzabal could have skipped the Olympics if he wanted, but it’s the Olympics, an experience that any athlete would love to have. It’s harsh to blame individual players for wanting to make the most of their short careers just because administrators don’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘less is more’.

We can’t definitively draw a line between an excess of games and that specific injury, but it surely doesn’t help.

“It’s about having sufficient time to recover in between each match,” says Nick Worth, a consultant sports physiotherapist who has worked with several football clubs, about why too many games are problematic. “The physical demands mean players are more likely to get injured because they’re playing in a fatigued state.”

Clubs generally do their best to regulate the number of games their key players appear in and have a variety of methods to judge when the players are reaching their capacity and need a rest. But those methods are not infallible: “It’s an indicator rather than being a decision-maker,” says Worth. But also the sheer number of games — and, perhaps more to the point, the commercial and sporting importance placed on those games — means it can be difficult to determine which ones a player can miss.

Euro 2024 hero Oyarzabal complained about scheduling (Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images)

Even friendlies aren’t safe. Take the game Inter Miami played in Hong Kong last February. Messi didn’t play in that game because of a groin injury, but then did in a subsequent fixture in Japan a few days later, which sparked outrage. Tatler, which sponsored the event, gave 50 per cent refunds to outraged spectators after saying it was “let down along with all of you”, while a local politician described it as a “calculated snub to Hong Kong”.

There is also the desire from the players involved to play in games that, from a medical perspective, they probably shouldn’t have done. All of those who played through injury at the Euros and the Copa this summer probably would have rested had these been run-of-the-mill, mid-season league games.

FIFPro has also raised concerns about excessive pain-killing injections that are often given to players to squeeze a few more minutes or games out of them. “That happens less often than people imagine,” says Worth, but he also cautions that there is “an element of jeopardy about those decisions”.

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The risk is not the injections themselves, but the fact they mask the pain that serves as the body’s way of letting the player know they are injured. “So there are times people play with pain-killing injections, but the risk is you might make something worse without someone knowing it,” says Worth.

The point is that at both the major tournaments this summer, despite brilliant play, thrilling moments and new heroes, the overall spectacle was diminished because the biggest stars either got injured, were playing with existing injuries or were simply exhausted.

“We are human beings, not machines,” the former Liverpool and West Ham goalkeeper Adrian told The Athletic this week. “We need a balance, for the fans to enjoy football, too. We need to be fresh and able to play. There are no movies without actors.”

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Additional reporting: Dermot Corrigan

(Top photos: Jude Bellingham by Alex Grimm; Lionel Messi by Buda Mendes; both via Getty Images)