A long held wish of the honorable and much loved Mr. Blatter of FIFA, a reduction in the number of sides in the Premiership, seems to be what UEFA are driving at as well. An official report on players’ health skirts around the issue of resolving the problems it highlights, but it seems implicit that UEFA want to reduce the amount of domestic matches a footballer plays per season. The Times report,
‘An official Uefa report asks whether the burnout among top footballers is more mental than physical, with increasing numbers failing to produce their best in leading tournaments such as Euro 2004. Andy Roxburgh, the development director of European football’s governing body, said yesterday, “The people who are misused and overplayed are the stars and they suffer the most. There are too many matches at a high tempo.”
‘The report, which was presented yesterday in Stockholm to a conference of Europe’s top coaches, including Sven-Goran Eriksson, asked: “Instead of massaging weary legs, should we be working on tired minds? Is the real problem mental burnout rather than physical fatigue?”’
Roxburgh is also quoted on Uefa’s website as saying, “"We want to do as much as we possibly can to protect the national teams. Everybody wants to see the star players performing at their highest level for their national team at the major championships but sometimes this is very hard to achieve because these players have just finished a long, hard season with their club.”