Calls grow for English football to introduce winter break
Germany’s Bundesliga has one, Spain’s Primera Liga has one, the Italian Serie A also has one, as does France’s Ligue 1, but the English Premier League does not: is the winter break the real reason why England have fared so badly in major tournaments over recent decades?
In the aftermath of England’s humiliating 4-1 defeat at the hands of Germany at this summer’s World Cup finals, the deflated Fabio Capello blamed sheer tiredness for his side’s last-16 exit and called for a winter break to be introduced in the country.
The idea has been backed by several managers in the past, including former England boss Sven-Göran Eriksson and Martin O’Neill. Although other big names in football management such as Arsène Wenger and José Mourinho have previously stated that they don’t feel it’s so essential.
But for those of a pro-winter break persuasion, they have the backing of Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who has reiterated his stance on the issue by claiming a winter break is the only way that England will perform to their true potential at major tournaments.
"The FA has to give the country the best possible chance of doing well in the World Cup," Ferguson commented.
"Because of the nature of our game and because of the demands from television to have a programme every week, I have been talking about a winter break but nothing has happened.
"They must realise that, going into the World Cup, they have handicapped their team."
Despite Ferguson’s comments, along with those of Capello’s et al, the Football Association are reluctant to even consider the idea of introducing a mid-season break. Fixture congestion is a big enough problem as it is already, without narrowing the time frame by a further four weeks. So, how then, do Europe’s other top leagues manage to have a break and still avoid a fixture pile-up?
The key appears to be spreading the matches out evenly over a shorter period of time. This means more mid-week games are played in leagues such as the Primera Liga to allow for a proper break at the start of every year.
Back in England, there have been suggestions from various sources that scrapping FA Cup replays could be one viable way of reducing the workload of Premier League players. Introducing an extra-time, penalty shoot-out conclusion to every FA Cup tie – in the same way that the final itself is decided - would help ease potential fixture congestion, and so this is one avenue which the FA must be prepared to explore despite their tendencies towards keeping the sport traditional.
Another possible solution would be to strike a compromise on the number of matches played over the winter period. As the busiest time in the football calendar - as many as eight or nine matches are often played over the course of a month - perhaps by reducing this to half the number of games, players will feel more refreshed for the second-half of the season.
Of course, with clubs competing in the Champions League, Europa League, FA Cup and the Carling Cup, it’s inevitable that many kick-off times would have to be changed from the traditional Saturday 3pm to accommodate this new system.
But it’s been tried and tested in other countries; and Spain, Italy, Germany and France have all enjoyed success at international level in recent years, whereas England have been left behind.
As Ferguson has said, this can’t be mere coincidence. Although the reasons for England’s failure are more fundamental than simply fixture-congestion, a January break to revitalise the players would not act as a hindrance to the players themselves or their national teams.
Unfortunately for Capello and those England managers yet to come, it seems they’ll need to overcome a few daunting hurdles yet before convincing the FA to finally introduce one.
This would appear to mean that if you’re an England supporter, it’s probably best to prepare yourself now for another dose of disappointment at Euro 2012.
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