FIFPro general secretary Alex Philips said “we are having informal discussions (with organisers) about the use of air-conditioned stadiums”, but added “nothing concrete” had arisen from talks.

The report also highlighted the impact of the Club World Cup on players’ workloads following the club season.
Bielefeld said the “timing of the Club World Cup had a very negative impact” on players’ rest periods and their pre-season.

According to the report, no players from the analysed participant clubs reached the minimum 28-day off-season, and many started the current season without the minimum required four-week pre-season and re-training period

Nottingham Forest and New Zealand striker Chris Wood told journalists on a call presenting the report: “For us as players, it’s vitally important that we have the recovery period to go again.”

The 33-year-old added that not having the minimum recovery period was “feasible over one or two seasons, but not for five or six”.

The union also flagged the increasing number of minutes being played by star youngsters such as Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal.

Yamal racked up over 8,000 minutes of playing time for his club and country prior to turning 18, which FIFPro said far surpassed that of previous “generational talents” like Andres Iniesta or Kylian Mbappe.

Chair of FIFPro’s high-performance advisory network, Darren Burgess, said, “players are still growing and maturing until 24-25 years of age, overexposure before then is taking an injury risk”.

Wood added that a balance needed to be struck in finding the right amount of time for teenagers to play.

“When you’re young, you just want to play football. You don’t think about how your body is changing and growing,” he said.

“It’s about finding that balance by educating younger players about the risks.”