European soccer leaders tell UEFA of unhappiness with longer 4-game schedule for national teams

BERLIN (AP) — European soccer federations told UEFA they are not happy with the new extended four-game blocks of international matches that finished this week.

Injured players like Kylian Mbappé missed too many games, Erling Haaland asked to come off in Norway’s fourth match, resources were stretched for coaches in smaller countries and extra demands were made on the time and money of fans and sponsors.

A “disaster,” said one official among multiple federations who spoke to The Associated Press on the sidelines of a closed-doors UEFA meeting Thursday in Berlin. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential debate.

UEFA said it will gather their views to weigh a submission to FIFA about the 16-day block that combined what used to be separate two-game breaks in September and October.

Still, the four-game early-season block is locked in for four more years on the FIFA-managed calendar for international matches that is finalized through 2030. That year national teams in Europe will play four games between Sept. 23 to Oct. 8. Next year they will be qualifying games for the 2028 European Championship.

Fewer but longer breaks for international games have long been wanted by European clubs seeking to limit disruption to their seasons, and cut long-haul travel for their players from outside the continent.

Still, the past three weeks have not been popular with one Champions League club, whose coach led his national team Croatia for two years including at the 2014 World Cup.

“We now have the issue of not only having the occasional player coming back injured, but also the fact you go two or 2½ weeks without any momentum,” Borussia Dortmund coach Niko Kovač said this week. “We’re all starting from scratch now, in a sense.”

Outside of Europe, FIFA has said the longer break allowed time for regional tournaments like the eight-team Arabian Gulf Cup played Sept. 23-Oct. 6 in Saudi Arabia.

FIFA pushed to condense international breaks in 2021 as part of its biennial World Cup proposal, and later updated its calendar for men’s soccer.

The calendar mandates when clubs must release players for international duty, including the World Cup, where FIFA pays hundreds of millions of dollars to clubs worldwide whose players represented their national teams.

After the UEFA meeting Thursday, officials said only Azerbaijan among the 55 member federations spoke out in clear defense of FIFA’s management of the calendar.

The four-game break followed two months after the longest-ever World Cup, the first with 48 teams and where Norway played into July after reaching the quarterfinals.

“For those who play in the Champions League and have had little vacation, it’s more brutal than for the others,” Norway coach Stale Solbakken said of the schedule and after substituting Haaland in the second half of a loss Sunday to Portugal.

Haaland faces an intense week with Manchester City, going to Liverpool on Sunday in the Premier League then hosting Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on Wednesday.

European national teams next call up players for camps starting Nov. 9 to play two games that complete the Nations League group phase.

AP Sports Writer Ciarán Fahey contributed to this report

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