Next year’s World Cup will be held in Qatar between November 21 and December 18 and Bielsa claims the players will not have enough time to prepare
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Leeds ’ Marcelo Bielsa claims FIFA are making the World Cup worse by staging it next year in the middle of the Premier League season.
The World Cup will be held in Qatar between November 21 and December 18 and the Premier League will pause from November 13 to Boxing Day.
Bielsa managed Argentina in the 2002 World Cup and feels football’s authorities are not treating the tournament with the respect it deserves.
He feels the eight-day build-up is nowhere near enough preparation time for teams and feels the quality of the football is being sacrificed to make money.
Bielsa said: “The Premier League will offer half of its players to the World Cup.
“The Premier League is interrupted 10 days before the start of the World Cup.
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Image:
ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)
“The World Cup which is the most desirable thing in football, for the footballers and coaches of the national teams, they are offered the minimum possibility of preparing a team. The only thing produced by this is that what’s on show every time is worse.
“The World Cup is a spectacle which is played every four years and is the homage football makes to the world, but to make that worse it doesn’t make sense.
“By chance I came across something from when the players were at the World Cup in Mexico in ‘86 and they were complaining about the high temperatures when the games were played.
“The response to that was the players should focus on what they’re paid to do.
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“It’s true, each of us should have an opinion on what we do. A lot of times we talk a lot more than we should, in this case myself, but it brings me great sadness to see how football is deteriorating.”
Bielsa claims footballers play too many domestic and international matches and feels the game’s various authorities prioritise making money over the quality of the product.
“What is clear is the calendar is so overcharged, it doesn’t bear in mind the development or preparation,” he said.
“That’s why I have serious doubts over the future of professional football because it is constantly commercialised and the product is worse.
“It’s based on selling more games, but it ignores whether teams are in better conditions to offer better results.
“I use the terms that the football industry uses, but it’s difficult for me to think it in those terms.
“That’s why I say it doesn’t make sense to want to multiply the commercialisation of a product when the product is only getting worse.”
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