Club World Cup: The big business of football cups

Can a football player play more than 70 games at the highest level in a single year and no one think that there is something wrong here? The truth is that he can. And there is even a case that the Portuguese know well, that of the Argentine Nicolas Otamendi, who, since June of last year, had already played, until last Monday, the 9th, for Benfica and his country's national team, 69 matches, spread across the Copa América, the Olympic Games, qualification for the 2026 World Cup, the Portuguese League, the Champions League, the Portuguese Cup and the League Cup. And he could add to this number eight more matches, if he had lined up for Argentina in the early hours of the 10th and if he played, as expected, in all the games that Benfica will play in the Club World Cup, which will be at least three, but could, in the event of an unlikely (but theoretically possible) trip to the final, be a total of seven.

Is it humanely and physically correct to demand that an athlete (especially one who is already approaching 38 years of age) make such an effort? The issue is divided and some people find it easy to resolve, arguing that players only do it because they want to and, at this level, they earn enough to justify the tremendous effort required of them. Those who are most concerned consider that this exposure of players to physical and mental fatigue is inhumane, conducive to serious injuries, and that it can only be explained by the excessive greed of the institutions that manage world football, combined with the financial interests of federations, club owners, sponsors and television operators. This is the only way to justify FIFA adding a Club World Cup to the already usual and demanding national and continental club competitions, in addition to the national team competitions, and placing it between the end and the beginning of two seasons, a time previously reserved for players' holidays, which all experts believe should not be less than a month.