Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham stars face ‘ominous danger’ at 2022 FIFA World Cup

Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham’s World Cup players face an ‘ominous threat’ at this winter’s competition, according to player representative group FIFPRO.

Club football has now entered a break lasting just over a month to make room for the World Cup in Qatar. It’s the first time we have seen a World Cup take place at this time of year, with Qatar not able to host a summer edition due to its extremely hot climate.

The timing is difficult for players, who have been forced to play a large number of games in a short period over the last couple of years, with the pandemic forcing competitions to play catch up. This season, those in European action, including Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham stars, have had to play twice per week almost every week for the last six or seven weeks, with the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League group stage fixtures having to be completed almost a month earlier than usual.

In addition to that busy schedule, World Cup players will now play three group stage games in just over a week, then they have the potential of adding knockout stage fixtures to that participation. Players will then return and jump straight back into a long club season - more than half of which still needs to be played - with Premier League action resuming on Boxing Day.

That kind of workload has led to a report from FIFPRO, stating the dangers facing players as they jet off to represent their countries.

The report has found players, on average, have just seven days to prepare for the World Cup, compared to 31 days in previous editions. Recovery time is down from 37 days to just eight More than 70% of players played back-to-back games spanning the first 23 days of October, leading to claims players could be being asked to go beyond their limits.

The report claims the scheduling impact has had a significant impact on the amount of players who will now miss the World Cup due to injury.

Portugal (135,237) and Brazil (135,078) have the players who have played the most minutes, while England are in sixth place with 127,120. Tottenham star Harry Kane is among the players who have the biggest workload, playing in every competitive game this season.

Kane has made 18 appearances this season, adding to 62 from last season, totalling 80 appearances and 7,201 minutes. In terms of cumulative minutes played this season, Kane and Son Heung-min make up two of the top three (second and third) for most minutes played. Son has played 6,903 minutes so far. Son has also spent as many as 194 hours travelling this season, crossing 134 time zones.

It will be a similar story for Chelsea, who have as many as 12 players in Qatar, and Arsenal, who have 10. Tottenham have 11 players competing at the World Cup this winter. With all three London clubs involved in European action this season, all three clubs’ players are among the most at risk due to the factors cited in the FIFPRO report.