Chelsea’s Magda Eriksson isn’t celebrating the addition of a Club World Cup by FIFA just yet, citing a recent uptick in injuries in an op-ed for iNews.
Eriksson noted in the op-ed that she found it “alarming” that FIFA “did not consult the leagues or the players” despite the recent string of serious injuries to players like Vivianne Miedema and Beth Mead.
“Instead, Fifa president Gianni Infantino just announced it out of the blue,” she wrote.
The announcement also came the day after Miedema left the field for Arsenal in tears, an injury that was later announced to be an ACL tear. Her injury, alongside Mead’s less than a month earlier, “only accentuates the need to give more serious thought to player welfare in the women’s game,” Erikkson writes.
“Fifpro, the players’ union, were right to complain about the lack of consultation,” she says. “I’m all for new ideas but you have to think about the players. If you just add more and more games, there’ll come a time when it just becomes too much.”
While the Swedish defender would be excited to play some of the best teams from other leagues, she argues that FIFA should have consulted with the players union. She also reflects on her own experience following…
