Women's World Cup 2023: England players have played most minutes, says Fifpro report
- Published
Leah Williamson's ACL injury 'devastating' & 'heartbreaking'
England will head into the Women's World Cup having played more total minutes than any other leading country, according to a report by Fifpro.
A disproportionate number of female footballers have suffered ACL injuries, including England's Euro 2022-winning stars Leah Williamson and Beth Mead.
The report showed that World Cup teams have had "vastly different playing opportunities" over the last year.
Club and international calendars also remain "uneven and fragmented".
"The Women's World Cup is a fantastic celebration of the women's game, but is also a time to analyse the sometimes patchy development of the sport," said Jonas Baer Hoffmann, Fifpro's general secretary.
"The data shows competitive opportunities for players globally is largely dependent on the context of domestic football in their home country, as well as the availability of international club football."
The global players' union worked with the data and analytics platform Football Benchmark to produce the Women's World Cup workload journey report.
It examined female players' workload and playing opportunities from 1 August 2022 to 3 June 2023.
During that period, the England squad's combined total minutes played in all competitive club and national team matches were 65,398, putting them ahead of Spain (61,894), Portugal (61,508) and the Netherlands (59,970).
England squad members played a total of 48,222 minutes in domestic club football, with an additional 7,109 coming from international club competitions such as the Champions League.
The domestic football set-up in three of the top five countries on the list - England, Portugal and the Netherlands - also included a second club cup competition, adding more playing time.
The 2019 World Cup winners, the USA, played far fewer minutes overall (46,455), however, their total national team minutes were 11,316, placing them above both World Cup co-hosts Australia (11,182) and Euro 2022 winners England (9,778).
Eight countries are missing from the analysis, including China, Argentina and South Africa, due to a lack of available data.
"Player workload is an important lens through which to assess some the overall needs of women's football from an access, development and competitive aspect," said Sarah Gregorius, Fifpro's director of global policy and strategic relations for women's football.
"By using the milestone of the Women's World Cup and the context for participating players, we can see where football stakeholders can come together to improve the international match calendar and make data-driven decisions on how to add and innovate with competitions to better promote performance and well-being for more players."
The report shows that many players in countries where football is less developed are forced to move abroad to improve their playing time or face having not enough matches to reach their potential.
It also suggested that all regions stage standalone qualifying competitions for the next Women's World Cup, with only Europe currently doing so, to help create a "more balanced qualification system that supports the growth of women's football worldwide".