FIFPRO Player Workload Monitoring (PWM), set to launch in March, will address a growing need for aggregated player workload data by providing extensive information about the playing time, travel and recovery periods of a sample of male and female footballers.
The digital platform will help the football industry stakeholders make informed decisions in designing the next generation of national and international competitions so that they are sustainable, integrated, and benefit footballers and the game as a whole.
FIFPRO has been working with KPMG’s Football Benchmark practice on the project for several months to create player-centric dashboards providing ongoing information across competitions. The platform will assist stakeholders in developing the necessary safeguards against excessive workload, and help identify possible opportunities in markets that would benefit from new and innovative competitions.
The FIFPRO PWM platform will be public facing and available for player unions and stakeholders as well as fans, media and sports scientists. It will include a wide range of metrics such as the number of minutes players are on the pitch, the accumulated duration of their international travel, and the length of their rest and recovery periods. FIFPRO and KPMG have agreed to a detailed plan to develop the platform over the next three years. Regular data updates will enable comparisons between players and competitions around the world, and measure changes across different seasons.
FIFPRO Deputy General Secretary Simon Colosimo said: “As a former player, I have first-hand experience of the impact accumulated workload can have on the performance and careers of footballers. I am convinced this platform will be a valuable service to professional football by helping to facilitate a framework that protects and enables the performance and health of players. When the players on the pitch are at their peak of their ability, the whole football industry benefits.”
FIFPRO Global Player Council member Elise Kellond-Knight said: “It’s so important that we find a better balance for the men’s and women’s football industries. In the women’s game only a minority of players have the optimum amount of matches, and so we are only scratching the surface of the game’s potential. At the other end of spectrum, some players are in a unique position where they play for two clubs in a calendar year, with no accountability or monitoring of their overall load. In the men’s game, some players find themselves on a treadmill of matches and travel that barely stops, while others have too few games.
“The FIFPRO Player Workload Monitoring platform is a great idea, a data-driven approach to find more balance. It should help identify ways to ease match overload and identify untapped potential for new competitions.”
KPMG’s Global Head of Sports, Andrea Sartori said: “We are excited to take the next step in our longterm relationship with FIFPRO through the announcement of our enhanced collaborative partnership and the implementation of FIFPRO PWM. The player workload monitoring dashboards we co-developed combines player-centric thinking with the data and technology of the KPMG Football Benchmark platform to provide an integrated digital monitoring solution on player workload to the football industry. This collaboration expands our joint value proposition to the football industry and supports player unions and football stakeholders to build the next generation of competition formats and match calendars.”
The FIFPRO Player Workload Monitoring (PWM) platform will be accessible via www.fifpro.org and https://www.footballbenchmark.com
