Joachim Loew, who has rested all of his Germany stars for this month’s Confederations Cup, says football’s governing bodies are risking over-loading the sport’s top players with too many games.
“It’s a dangerous game - we mustn’t pull too hard on the rope,” Germany’s head coach warned.
“One has the impression that the things are already bloated and the fixture list looks anything but happy.”
Loew has left out stars like Thomas Mueller, Mats Hummels, Toni Kroos, Mesut Ozil, Jerome Boateng, Manuel Neuer and Sami Khedira for the Confederations Cup, June 17-July 2, and included seven uncapped players.
To prepare for next year’s World Cup, Loew has said his main goal in Russia is to blood his next generation of stars — and has said nothing about winning the eight-team tournament.
Germany faces Chile, Australia and Cameroon in Group B with Portugal, host Russia, Mexico and New Zealand in Group A.
Loew has included only three of the squad which won the 2014 World Cup and none of the trio — defenders Matthias Ginter, Shkodran Mustafi and midfielder Julian Draxler — started the Rio de Janeiro final.
Having steered Germany to the semifinals of every major finals since 2006, Loew warns that plans by FIFA and UEFA to expand the top tournaments could lead to over-load.
“After the end of the season, the players go for a few days on holiday, but can’t actually have a proper vacation, because they have to follow a training programme,” Loew added.
“They have to be ready to go again after two weeks. Long term, that’s not good. There are a lot of tournaments, the Club World Cup is supposed to expand, the World Cup will be expanded, the European championships have been expanded.
“If you have a good product and want to make it even more desirable, then a shortage might be good.”
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