De Bruyne’s Surprise: “No Club World Cup, I’m out of contract and if I get injured, I’m done.” Modric, Müller, Sané, Di Maria: dozens are in the same boat. And then there’s the mystery of loan players
The closer the FIFA tournament gets, the clearer the risk of it being a flop becomes—for clubs, players and fans. Infantino demands teams field their best lineups: good luck with that
(Translated into English by Grok)
That the Club World Cup is turning into a nightmare for everyone and risks proving, as they say in Rome, a sòla—a rip-off (for players, clubs, and fans)—is something many are starting to realize. Yesterday, one of Europe’s most talented, experienced, and intelligent players, Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City, who will turn 34 on June 28 while the tournament is in full swing, spoke out. De Bruyne, whose contract with Manchester City is expiring (there were rumors of him being a potential target for Napoli, reportedly on Conte’s suggestion), put his finger on a problem that will inevitably affect all players in his situation. “I won’t play in the Club World Cup,” he said. “It’s an unnecessary risk: if I get injured, what happens then? No one will look after me.”
As I’ve been writing for some time, one of the anomalies of the FIFA tournament is that it takes place around June 30, straddling the end of one competitive season and the start of the next. Needless to say, players whose contracts expire on June 30 face a dilemma: play or not play? From July 1, free agents become their own masters, no longer “owned” by their former clubs. And De Bruyne rightly points out: “If I play and get injured, who takes care of me?”
But it’s not just players with expiring contracts. There are also those on loan, who until June 30 are under the control of Club X but return to Club Y from July 1. For example: Veiga, on loan at Juventus—should he play the Club World Cup with Juventus or Chelsea? Infantino has tried to address this by introducing two extraordinary transfer windows: one from June 1 to 10 and another from June 27 to July 3, the latter specifically to resolve the thorny issue of expiring contracts. But finding a solution may not be so simple. On the loan issue, for instance, contractually, Juventus has every right to use Veiga (and Kolo Muani, Conceição, Kalulu) until June 30, just as Chelsea has the right to use Veiga from July 1 onward. If the interests of the two clubs don’t align, the problem becomes unsolvable.
The first consequence of this genuine mess is that, besides De Bruyne, no one knows if we’ll see players like Modric of Real Madrid, Thomas Müller and Sané of Bayern, Koke, Witsel, Azpilicueta, and Reinildo of Atlético Madrid, Di Maria and Otamendi of Benfica, Sancho of Chelsea, or Inter’s Acerbi, De Vrij, Correa, and Arnautovic, among many others, at the Club World Cup.
But the truth is that it’s not just players with expiring contracts who are worried—very worried—about the high risk of injuries that a tournament like this carries at the end of an exhausting season, as all seasons now are for Europe’s top clubs. All players are concerned (and, though they won’t admit it, all clubs too). At the Club World Cup in the USA, played in brutal weather conditions (just ask Arrigo Sacchi and the Italian team that competed in the 1994 World Cup, which we lost on penalties to Brazil), players will arrive worn out, physically and mentally drained, squeezed like lemons. And since the risk of injury, given all these considerations, is high, there’ll be a race to avoid playing rather than to participate. When I wrote that the Club World Cup would see teams fielding lineups packed with reserves and youth players, I was also considering the concern that Infantino himself implicitly admitted by including Article 4, Paragraph 2 in the regulations, which obliges clubs to “field their best possible lineup in every match.” A redundant, useless rule that doesn’t hold up: who decides what the best possible lineup is for Inter—Infantino or Inzaghi? Or for City—Infantino or Guardiola?
As I’ve written several times, participating in the Club World Cup could end up causing more harm than good to the clubs involved and could seriously jeopardize the success of the upcoming season. De Bruyne has thrown a stone into the pond: from June 14 in the USA, we’re in for quite a show.
