Nadine Kessler

acceptable is that we are now coming off five years in a row with final tournaments without a break for players that is i think we can all agree uh way too much um on on a player players need to rest especially if they play on a high level the next thing i think that i've changed number of matches slightly increased

It's not so much as we sometimes portray.

They have increased, but what increased immensely is the intensity of matches, right?

Yeah.

Cannot pretend it's the same level as when I played 10 years ago.

But so squad management, squad sizes, conditions surrounding players clearly have to get better, have to be stepped up.

And I think the third point that impacts player load a lot is the fight often of competition organizers to find,

exclusivity in the calendar space in the calendar you see many domestic leagues expanding their competitions there were new competitions added if anything and now i'm becoming a bit protective if anything uefa has not added a lot more matches our playoff round for example um

is on paper two match days more.

But we also seed many more teams to the league phase than we did before.

So it will be not sure actually if teams play more matches.

Might be zero to four teams that play two matches more.

So if you look at the grand scheme of things, I think we've been really considerate about player load and we've discussed it at length when we were creating the new format and hence again the Europa Cup.

But yeah, this exclusivity phase

let's say fight over certain calendar spots sometimes leads to the fact that matches are maybe scheduled in a congested way right it's not easy there are so many football matches and other events going on that competition organizers have to circumvent and and therefore maybe sometimes also decisions and that is always to be challenged

are not taken only with sporting interests at mind, right?

There are broadcasters who have demands and others.

Stadium availability is another one.

But it's certainly something that, you know, we need to get better at women's football.

And I mean, absolutely everyone, everyone who runs a competition needs to be very responsible about