Fifa calendar break is just what some clubs need

While a lot of football supporters were left puzzled and racking their brains about the Fifa calendar break being elongated, several club coaches have unleashed expletives at the world’s diski governing body for interrupting their tempo and momentum so early in the season.

It did not matter that Fifa announced way back in 2023 that starting this year, the September–October international break was going to last 16 days — from September 21 to October 6 — because Fifa merged the old separate September and October windows into a single combined period.

Instead of two separate two-game breaks (in September and October) spaced a few weeks apart, teams will get one extended window.

For instance, the English Premier League finished its fifth round of matches on September 20 and does not return until October 10, while the other major European leagues will also pause for the same period.

This also means that national teams can play up to four matches in that calendar period. Previously, the matches were spread across separate windows (two matches in September and similarly in October).

Fifa says it is doing this for the welfare of its most important stakeholders, the players, who have had to criss-cross the length and breadth of the world to honour national team matches.

Fifa says it will reduce chronic travel fatigue and mid-autumn fixture pile-up.

This is particularly helpful for players based in Europe who represent countries scattered all over the world. As a matter of illustration, a player could, in the past, make a long journey for a September camp, return to his club and then repeat the same trip a few weeks later for the October fixtures. Bringing the windows together can help reduce the distress.

The global football body said: “Fifa’s objective in this process is to make a football calendar that is ‘fit-for-purpose’ for modern needs, contributing for the improvement of the quality of players, clubs and national teams and giving both incentive and opportunity for the detection and development of talent outside a small number of countries.”

If all is above board, this could also be beneficial for Bafana Bafana players who are playing in far-flung places like the USA and in European leagues.

The likes of Mbekezeli Mbokazi, Relebohile Mofokeng, Olwethu Makhanya, Thapelo Maseko and Puso Dithejane, to mention but a few, will benefit from such a move in the future — otherwise they would have had to have to make two trips in that short space of time.

Also, for teams struggling to work on their combinations, this is a great opportunity to drill the methods down the players’ skulls.

A team like Kaizer Chiefs could use the long break for players to recuperate — after all, their dressing room is beginning to look like a Vietnam War casualty ward. Their major players are limping and the ones who are playing are struggling with consistency.

Chiefs might not have lost a match but they are dropping many points and falling off the league race.