Sarai Bareman, FIFA’s chief women’s football officer, believes issues over when players should be released by clubs for this summer’s Women’s World Cup shows that the game is growing.
Club versus country tensions threatened to derail plans for national teams competing at the tournament in Australia and New Zealand until FIFA and the European Club Association (ECA) reached an agreement last month.
The original date of July 10 — 10 days before the tournament kicks off — had prompted concerns over player welfare and injury risk with the tight schedule.
But while that remains the mandatory release date, a compromise was reached so that players can now be released from the earlier dates of June 23-29.
Bareman, who attended the European Club Association’a first summit on Women’s football in London on Monday, has put the previous disagreements down to “growing pains” due to the rise of women’s football.
“I think this is one of the growing pains,” Bareman told The Athletic. “And I say that in a positive way. As our game starts to grow, the pressure, particularly at the elite end on individual players, clubs and the national associations starts to build. These kind of issues are going to come out of the woodwork.
“I think it’s positive, I know a lot of…
 reached an agreement last month. The original date of July 10 — 10 days before the tournament kicks off — had prompted concerns over player welfare and injury risk with the tight schedule. But while that...){kind=link}