A couple of days back, Burnley manager Sean Dyche voiced out his take on player welfare with regards to his own squad and how the ways of taking care of players have advanced in the recent years.

I, both agreed and disagreed to what Sean said in the interview. For clubs where players don't go for international duties or don't extensively get involved in more than 2-3 competitions in a whole calendar year, Sean has probably got a point.

But then when it comes to players playing about 60-65 odd games a season along with high intensity international football for their country with very little gap to rest themselves physically and mentally, it is a case of the players running themselves into the ground.

Football is not just a sport anymore. The capitalists and those in power & authority have turned it into a business – essentially sporting entertainment. One that has a wider commercial appeal. And sadly, or not, there is very little players, fans or coaches can do about it to stop them making any change of such nature.

I think the players also need to be conscious. If they are paying attention is to see how any of the governing bodies, are messing up with competition formats, they would realise that football is heading into a direction of even more games with lesser physical and mental rest for players and the competitions are going to lose their value – just like how Kylian Mbappe mentioned about the potential biennial World Cup losing its value and how it was a special event that occurred once every 4 years.

They need to make conscious decisions as to what games they want to make themselves available. If they just blindly play all these games and then complain about player welfare, it wouldn’t really make sense.

Players want to play and help their clubs and countries in every big game possible, its fair. But to what extent? Are competitions like the Nations League (one that no player probably dreamt of winning as a kid to be fair) worthy enough for them to play through injury and pain?