Fighting for footballers' labour rights ft. FIFPRO's Alexander Bielefeld and Alex Culvin

Have you ever thought of Leo Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo as workers? Probably not! And yet for global stars as for lower level professional footballers and others in less glamorous leagues, football is a job with 'trade relations'.  In this episode co-hosts Guy and Francesco speak to labour rights advocates, Alex Culvin and Alexander Bielefeld from FIFPRO, the World Players Union organisation which brings together national trade unions of footballers from around the globe. Alex and Alexander set out the main issues facing male and female professional footballers. Alexander also highlights the emerging challenge of big data and Artificial Intelligence in the elite-level game while Alex shares her thoughts on who should be the next Liverpool manager!

Transcript

Fighting for footballers' labour rights, ft. FIFPRO's Alexander Bielefeld and Alex Culvin

Guy Burton 00:09

Hello and welcome to another episode of the football podcast where football meets politics. I'm one of your co -hosts, Guy Burton, and this is my other co -host, Francesco Belcastro. How are you doing Francesco? 

Francesco Belcastro 00:19

I'm fine, Guy, how are you? 

Guy Burton 00:21

Well, I'm doing really well and I feel very pleased because I'm now allowed to do the introductions, having had a bit of a problem with my microphone in recent weeks, so I feel promoted in a way. 

Francesco Belcastro 00:31

I mean, a bit of a problem? It's been a tragedy! Listeners have been writing and texting and asking, what was going on with your technology? 

Guy Burton 00:40

You are being so melodramatic! But never mind. Anyway, what do you know what we're talking about today, Francesco? 

Francesco Belcastro 00:46

Well, today is going to be a great episode. As you know, I'm a bit of a trade union man myself. So I'm really looking forward to today's episode. 

Guy Burton 00:52

Exactly, because today we're going to be talking about footballers and labour rights, and probably more generally human rights as well. And to join us to talk about these things, we've got an excellent group of guests. 

Guy Burton 01:04

We've got Alexander Bielefeld, who is the director of Global Policy and Strategy for Men's Football at FIFPRO - and FIFPRO being the football players worldwide union. Alexander has been at FIFPRO since 2018 and has been working for more than a decade on players issues and representing their concerns at the highest level. 

Guy Burton 01:25

And we also have Dr Alex Culvin, who is a former professional footballer who's played in the Netherlands, for Everton, for Leeds and Liverpool, and the current head of strategy and research for Women's Football at FIFPRO. 

Guy Burton 01:37

She's also got a PhD, which looks at the employment policy of professional women athletes. And her research, which was one of the first, looked at the well -being, welfare and gender specific issues that women encounter in the sports labour market. 

Guy Burton 01:47

We'll be speaking to her a little bit later. But Alexander, welcome to the show. 

Alexander Bielefeld 01:53

Pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invitation. 

Guy Burton 01:55

So, Alexander, before we start, obviously, the subject matter that we're going to be talking about today is pretty serious. But we are always a little bit interested just to know whether guests have a particular football team that they follow and if so, which one it is and how you feel about them. 

Alexander Bielefeld 02:11

Well, look, I played academy football, so I didn't quite make it to the professional ranks, but I played at the academy team in my hometown in Hamburg at FC St Pauli. So that's my boyhood club, and still wearing the colours with pride. 

Guy Burton 02:28

The very famous skulls and bones badge I always remember. But second division now I think at the moment, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 02:37

Second division playing fantastic football, hopefully going up to first division at the end of the season. 

Francesco Belcastro 02:44

Top of the league, right? At the moment? 

Alexander Bielefeld 02:45

Yeah, they are. But look, it's one of these clubs, right? You can't necessarily follow them for the quality of the football, but rather for the passion and for the characteristics of the club and what they stand for. 

Alexander Bielefeld 02:56

And yeah, it has been fantastic since the first day, too, for the club, basically. 

Guy Burton 03:02

And do you St Pauli players get kind of a fast track to representation through your support for them at all or not? 

Alexander Bielefeld 03:13

No, absolutely not. But fair enough, I think the current captain of the team is part of our global player council, Jackson Irvine, from Australia. But usually, I think it's a club where the labor issues are actually fairly well managed. 

Francesco Belcastro 03:30

He's been an absolutely on fire at the Asian Cup. Irvine has been playing very well. I've followed a bit of it with Australia. So yeah. 

Alexander Bielefeld 03:39

And he has been brilliant at the club. Mm. 

Guy Burton 03:42

So can we talk a little bit about your organization and the work that you do at FIFPRO? So if you could explain a little bit to the listener what FIFPRO is and what it does, you know, sort of the key, sort of the main issue that your players, basically your members face and the current kinds of campaigns that you're working on. 

Alexander Bielefeld 04:00

Oh look, I mean, I think Francesco said at the beginning, right? He's a proud trade union man himself. I think that's the essence of the organization, right? First and foremost, FIFPRO is a trade union. 

Alexander Bielefeld 04:12

It's a trade union association. So professional football is a fairly labor and unionized sport. And we have national player unions in each of the playing markets, or in many of the playing markets. Across the different continents in the world. 

Alexander Bielefeld 04:33

And usually those trade unions basically become members of FIFPRO. To basically join a global trade union body to on the one hand, of course, share intelligence, share knowledge amongst the trade unions. 

Alexander Bielefeld 04:50

So the player unions in our case. But obviously also we're operating in a industry and in a sectoral context, which has become so globalized in the last 20 to 30 years. Right. And therefore also the employment issues, the labor issues for professional players have simply internationalized over the past decades. 

Alexander Bielefeld 05:17

Therefore, also FIFPRO has grown as a voice for unions to actually represent the interests of unions and the workforce issues of players on international issues. So I think that's really in the nutshell what FIFPRO is about. 

Alexander Bielefeld 05:36

The organization, obviously, as you can imagine, I think the organization has changed quite dramatically over a period of time. And today, today, I think we probably represent players on roughly 60 plus different policy issues or workforce issues from education to player development to health and safety issues to technology and commercial things, probably on the other end of the scale. 

Alexander Bielefeld 06:05

So it's an extremely broad field of issues for the union basically looking after for the players collectively. 

Guy Burton 06:16

Yeah.

Francesco Belcastro 06:16

I mean, in that sense, it's probably a bit different from other unions that you have more of a variety of topics that you cover as opposed to other unions that will have two or three main themes. 

Francesco Belcastro 06:28

And then the other one would be size, just because of the nature of the market and of the people you support, I guess. 

Alexander Bielefeld 06:35

I mean, maybe I can take you a little bit through travel, through time, in terms of organization. So, I mean, FIFRPRO was founded in 1965. So it's a quite old organization, right? And back then it was pretty much what I would call probably a gentleman's club, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 06:55

So there were six, seven members, unions for national markets, Italy, Spain, England, the Netherlands. And people were exchanging information. They wanted to understand what other issues players are facing basically in the national markets. 

Alexander Bielefeld 07:10

But then at the same time, you had national unions basically who have been much older than that, right? The PFA in England, for example, really goes back to the start of the century, same in France a little bit later. 

Alexander Bielefeld 07:23

But these player unions were already looking after the interests, after the employment interests, the workers' interests of the players in these domestic markets. And it was then basically after the Second World War, already in the 50s and 60s, that we had the first major labor, let's say, fights in professional football in England, but also in other markets. 

Alexander Bielefeld 07:47

So I think the two names probably, which spring to mind are Jimmy Hill and George Eastham, who basically back then already won all the important court cases in the courts in England on minimum or maximum pay for players, so salary disputes, but also the freedom to basically offer services, so basically to switch from one club to the other. 

Alexander Bielefeld 08:12

But those were domestic disputes, of course. But that's what unions back then, in that period, wanted to exchange on. But there was, of course, no international employment market for professional football from the sector. 

Alexander Bielefeld 08:29

And that took quite a while until the 90s. And then in the 90s, I think there were probably from a political and society perspective, a couple of things happening at the same time, which ultimately led to a development which accelerated professional football into this global entertainment industry, which we know today. 

Alexander Bielefeld 08:57

And for me, it's mainly three, four major things which happened in the 90s. So first, of course, there was the emergence of broadcast and commercial television and color TV. So I think the way people could consume football changed quite substantively from the 70s, for example. 

Alexander Bielefeld 09:18

Then at the 80s and the 90s as well, I think the end of the Cold War shifted the mindset of people. I think it was a much more open society, much more focused on commercial developments, commercial success. 

Alexander Bielefeld 09:33

As part of the end of the Cold War, we had also the beginning of the European Union, as we know today, in 1994, with the Treaty of Maastricht, the establishment of the single European market, which suddenly meant you had won economic market operating in Europe. 

Alexander Bielefeld 09:52

And suddenly, as part of that economic market, you had the freedom of workers to go from one market to the other. And the reason that the Bosnian ruling came in 1995 is basically the expression of all of that. 

Alexander Bielefeld 10:09

It's the expression of a liberated market in general after the Cold War. It's an acceleration in terms of commercialization through broadcast. But then it obviously is also the opportunity of players to offer their services across the continent. 

Alexander Bielefeld 10:25

And if Jean -Marc Bosman wouldn't have happened in 1995, you would have had another player with the same issue, probably, some years later or something like that. But it was no surprise that all of that happened in the mid -1990s basically. 

Alexander Bielefeld 10:41

And that obviously changed from a, if you go now to the perspective of a labor union, a labor union specifically, that changed obviously dramatically the need to cover international employment issues from a player perspective. 

Alexander Bielefeld 10:58

Because suddenly, the markets were literally growing at a speed which was not comparable to what we had seen in the 60s, 70s or 80s basically. And lots of international workforce issues were coming to the fore. 

Alexander Bielefeld 11:17

And that's something that the unions had to take care of. So for FIFA of the 90s, it's really where I think the modern part of this organization was more than a bore. And then there was still probably until, the mid 2000s, there was mainly a focus on the international transfer market. 

Alexander Bielefeld 11:39

So it was a very lean organization still was mainly around how do we shape the regulations that govern, you know, employment relationships, which is under FIFA RSTPs [Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players]. And how do we regulate that market under the transfer system? 

Alexander Bielefeld 12:02

And then probably step by step. So like the mid 2000s, you know, the emergence of financial fair play, suddenly the emergence of regulating financial issues at a European level, or at the more international level than we ever did before. 

Alexander Bielefeld 12:19

At the same time, I think we have over the past years, the emergence of technology, of course, right? I think artificial intelligence, the ability to collect data from players in their performance environment. 

Alexander Bielefeld 12:34

I think this is like where it has gotten to today. So I think FIFPRO now, as I said at the beginning, we're probably covering 50, 60 plus different policy areas, which are broadly relevant to the global employment market for players. 

Alexander Bielefeld 12:52

And then obviously it always depends to which playing groups you can attribute. That too. 

Guy Burton 12:59

Yeah, could I come in? Because one of the you're talking about the the growth explosion at the international level but it's also seems to be synonymous with Europe right and I'm so curious to how much of the the focus is on the European marke0t, because obviously the Europe is probably is pretty much drawing in many of the players from around the world, or do you find yourself actually working in, 

Guy Burton 13:20

you know it's a regional markets as well? Hw do those markets look and what does that mean in terms of the type of work that you do? 

Alexander Bielefeld 13:29

Yeah. I mean, Europe is definitely the most integrated market, which has something to do both with the European Union and the way we regulate economic, but also social affairs within the European Union. I think this is very clearly also a symbol of the political landscape simply, and the way European integration has worked over the past 20 or 30 years. 

Alexander Bielefeld 13:55

At the same time, obviously, from a professional football perspective, from an entertainment perspective, there obviously is a core part of the professional football industry in terms of its economic activities, which is sort of galvanizing around key markets in Europe. 

Alexander Bielefeld 14:14

But that should not take away that we have very old, very established player unions, trade unions in other markets around the world, right? So you can, for example, go to Agremiados, the players union in Argentina, which is an extremely well -established and organization with a wealth of tradition and history, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 14:39

But then obviously we also have unions who were part of emerging markets, and of course the Major League soccer players union, the Players Association, MLSPA, is operating today very differently than I probably have been operating 10, 15 years ago, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 15:00

But what we can see, of course, is I think that also the player unions market in other parts of the world is maturing. I think there's probably, if you look at it from a regional perspective, there's not the same level of integration as in Europe. 

Alexander Bielefeld 15:12

If you go, for example, to Asia, which has also something to do with the vast territory Asia is covering, right? Also, from a cultural identity perspective, if you go to Australia or South Korea or Japan, these are all unionized labor markets from a football perspective. 

Alexander Bielefeld 15:31

It's a very different culture than, for example, our player union in Malaysia or Indonesia, which is still part of the same Asian configuration from a footballing perspective, but obviously it's still because of the distance, because of cultural differences, there's also differences to what they can do. 

Alexander Bielefeld 15:51

But the employment issues are actually quite similar, right? Specifically also because we have so many, I think we probably represent a part of the entertainment industry, which is extremely integrated from a sense that we have so much playing talent that is playing in Europe, but it's coming from Asia and through the national team, still traveling back, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 16:14

It's experiencing conditions of the national teams there. So there's just a lot of connectivity in these markets between the different players, even though some of them might be playing Europe and they're going back. 

Alexander Bielefeld 16:25

So obviously it's also quite unique for professional football, I would say, as a global sport. 

Francesco Belcastro 16:31

Can I remind listeners that we had a little bit of a month ago on the politics of football in West Africa, where the idea of migrations and labor as well, it's crucial to the way that the football works there and the kind of, so I'm sure there's some of the issues that are there complimented very well, complimented very well with this discussion. 

Francesco Belcastro 16:54

So one thing that is really, really interesting is that obviously you represent, you have an overview of different issues around the world, which as you said are the similarities, but there are also massive differences. 

Francesco Belcastro 17:08

I was wondering, in terms of just how kind of the core part of the business or the core part of your activity works, are there like notable differences between your members in terms of sort of elite players versus non -elite professional players, both at domestic levels, we're talking about in an English context between Premier League and League 2 or also between sort of systems where salaries and conditions are very different. 

Francesco Belcastro 17:38

I'd assume there are quite different challenges there? 

Alexander Bielefeld 17:42

Usually, a player union in football is mirroring the market, right? And the market realities of the employment opportunities of the workers in the specific sector. Now, our unions, and I think this speaks very much to the culture of professional football based on an open league competition system, right, with a pyramid structure. 

Alexander Bielefeld 18:07

Our unions will represent players across the professional, different professional levels of the pyramid, right? Even if I go to an extremely advanced playing market, and it doesn't matter if I take Italy or England or France, for example, I take the unions there, those unions will represent players in the league competitions. 

Alexander Bielefeld 18:29

So in the Premier League, in La Liga, in Serie A. But they will also represent them down to Serie B and Serie C, and similarly in England, right? So what you will get as a union is that you don't have a homogeneous body of memberships of workers you represent, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 18:52

You represent all the professional workers in your industry, and because this is an open competition system, you will represent workers and members that have very different experiences working in the same industry. 

Alexander Bielefeld 19:08

So if you compare that, for example, to a players union in the US, right? So take, even in football, so take our member in the US, the MLSPA, the Players Association for the MLS Soccer Players. This is a union who represents only, who represents players in a closed league. 

Alexander Bielefeld 19:26

So that's probably 800 workers. And obviously within this group of workers, through the collective bargaining agreement, you have a, I would say, a similar experience, a similar workers experience when it comes to workforce issues, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 19:44

There's a minimum salary, there's a maximum salary, everyone plays in the major league sockets or training conditions, schedules, fairly the same, fair experience, security issues, more or less the same, right, for everyone in the league. 

Alexander Bielefeld 19:58

If you then go to - and it's the same for the NBA Players Association or NFL - it's a closed league. Very different, obviously, for a player union operating in Europe, right? Because of the open league system, you will have players who have vastly different experiences and who will also have very different demands towards the union, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 20:20

They want to be represented on different issues. So the biggest problem is at the moment that from our perspective, one of the main priorities in the elite part of the game is the excessive amount of workload that is put on elite players across all the different competitions they're playing, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 20:43

This is, you know, it's harming performance, it's increasing injury, it's a lack of holiday, lack of rest, it has a negative impact on sustainable career paths, etc., etc., etc. But that's an issue for, you know, I don't want to say a high level players because it's more than just a very small elite group, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 21:00

It's more players than you think, usually about, that are impacted by that. But obviously, from your overall union membership, it's probably still just 10% of your members, right? It's a very important group because that's the group of players who will drive predominantly the wealth and entertainment value of our entire industry, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 21:24

Suppliers who play the top competitions who are the most important resource for these competitions actually to run on that level, right? To generate that type of interest. And we obviously put a lot of resources to technicalization from a labor perspective. 

Alexander Bielefeld 21:40

But nevertheless, this is still only something which is probably applicable to, if you look at it from an overall employment perspective, to a small group of workers, and a lot of other workers probably in our industry operate under rather precarious circumstances and probably would wish to have three, four games more in a calendar so that they get an additional month of contract, you know, to feed the family. So...

Francesco Belcastro 22:07

Can I ask you one thing, Alexander? Would you say that in national unions where these differences are very present, the ones you described, has this created tension between different issues of representation, as it has been a problem, you'd say? 

Alexander Bielefeld 22:24

Of course, because you as a unit, you always have this, as in any other business or operation, right? You need to match capacity, resources, and apply them to your operations. And they are not endless, and you make choices at the end of the day. 

Alexander Bielefeld 22:43

So there's obviously always this kind of like, well, like what should be our priority, right? Is it that catering the interests of the top players? I think this is really important, is wrong to play that against each other, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 22:57

And easily fall into the trap to basically make this, two opposing poles. I think at the end of the day, it's feeding of each other, and of course you need a healthy balance. But some players on the top playing less also means other players are playing more, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 23:13

And it's important that the unions, that they find a good balance in terms of allocating their resources. And while we need to call out issues on excessive workload, or the elements of new technologies entering our industry, at the same time, we also need to address health and safety issues, spectator violence, because that's an issue which holds everyone together, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 23:42

Like I can go to Greece or Cyprus, which just in recent weeks, we had major unrest, major concerns between government, police, support groups and the unions, about safety conditions in the stadiums, right? 

Alexander Bielefeld 23:57

And it's important that you don't, that you find an equilibrium between the issues. But I think overall, I think we actually quite could spot at the moment, both domestically and internationally, and calling these things out. 

Guy Burton 24:12

You alluded to this a little bit earlier, that there are some markets which are very well established in terms of labour representation. But there are also these emerging markets, some countries in the world where labour representation isn't – I'm not talking about football specifically, but more generally, governments are not so receptive to representation by workers. 

Guy Burton 24:35

How does FIFAPRO go about supporting its members in that part of the world? 

Alexander Bielefeld 24:43

I think this is really important when you start having a global perspective, then you will operate with differences in the markets and they're quite significantly different. And I think you need to find that, probably also the humbleness that certain fundamental principles you would always as a trade unionist apply to a trade union, and you probably look different than when you operate in parts of Asia or in part of Africa. 

Alexander Bielefeld 25:09

And that's not necessarily to take something away from labor rights and the labor rights perspective. I think it's also part of accepting the differences in cultures in certain countries. I think most of our unions or members in parts of Asia, they would not call themselves player union because the word union is a difficult term politically. 

Alexander Bielefeld 25:36

So it's a player association and in Africa a lot of times it's a welfare association. But obviously we do have very specific principles which you can't compromise on as a trade union. Even as a national trade union. 

Alexander Bielefeld 25:57

But look, I think we need a player union for example in Saudi Arabia. It's certainly an emerging market. We want that also that there is a viable competition offering employment opportunities and career choices and performance pathways to players in that part of the world. 

Alexander Bielefeld 26:24

And we want the players within the context of the country they're playing in have the parties that they can focus on their job. And that there is someone and there is a organization for them that looks after the rest and their collective interests. 

Alexander Bielefeld 26:37

And that union or that organization will by default need to operate differently than for example the trade union in France. They love to strike and love to go to court. 

Alexander Bielefeld 26:50

So things would need to operate differently in a country such as Saudi Arabia. But you know, it doesn't matter necessarily for players. The players have to let the tourists, which they can't represent individually, and they need an organization to take care of that. 

Alexander Bielefeld 27:05

And ideally, that's the organization which is able to to to affiliate and to associate with people at the moment. We don't have a member. But of course, it is going to be a market with the world coming up in the country, etc., etc., in different competitions, you know, that will grow in importance. 

Alexander Bielefeld 27:23

And, you know, that that doesn't take anything away from anyone else. But obviously, players need to have, you know, their collective interests represented there as well. 

Francesco Belcastro 27:34

I think the talk of the town about everything at the moment is technology and AI related. Is there any news from your side there? Anything that the listeners might be interested in knowing about? 

Alexander Bielefeld 27:49

Yeah, interesting that you asked. I think in a podcast about politics and football, I think we just just passed a couple of weeks ago the EU AI Act and things like that. So I think it's something everyone obviously talks about in the general terms of our society and we kind of try to find ways of getting a grip on that. 

Alexander Bielefeld 28:10

But maybe let me ask you in return, how many data points do you think were collected of players at the World Cup 2018 in Russia in a match? 

Guy Burton 28:24

It's really blown up now, hasn't it? I mean, the betting industry pretty much, you can bet almost anything and everything now. It's not just the results of games, but how much percentage, how many passes, how many successful passes. 

Guy Burton 28:37

I dread to think. How many? 

Alexander Bielefeld 28:40

It was 130 ,000 at the World Cup in Russia. But now, how many do you think it was four years later in Qatar at the men's World Cup? And the same for the women's World Cup in Australia. 

Francesco Belcastro 28:53

3 -4 times more? 

Alexander Bielefeld 28:55

It was 8 million! 8 million! And the main reason for that is actually semi- automated offside. So we have basically different cameras under the roof of the stadium operating basically 29 body parts every millisecond of the player which adds up at the end of the day to 8 million data points per player, per match. 

Alexander Bielefeld 29:17

And that's just the game -related technology. So that's not what's happening in training, for example, right? So for us as union reps, actually, this is something where I think in the past, you know, union people were specialists on contracts and labor movement and things like that. 

Alexander Bielefeld 29:38

And, you know, nowadays it's kind of like the new challenge for everyone to become a software engineer in one way or another. And it has obviously, you know, a massive impact on players, not just when it comes to, you know, to official match operations such as refereeing or officiating, but it actually has an impact on predictive technologies, specifically when it comes to injury, also recruitment and scouting, of course. 

Alexander Bielefeld 30:05

You mentioned the betting market, similarly the gaming market, electronic arts has injected parts of these 8 million data points now in the new EA Sport FC game. So it's a massive part. I think very few people know actually how intrusive that really is. 

Alexander Bielefeld 30:25

And from a labor agenda and from a labor rights perspective, obviously this is something where, you know, I think we spend quite a lot of time on at the moment with the unions too. So it's like, yeah, wrap our head around that and to start educating the players so that there's enough awareness in the market on what kind of this collective information is. 

Guy Burton 30:46

I presume you're also using that data as part of the explanation to FIFA and others, the other authorities, about the impact of the game on your players and their bodies. Because the FIFA and others are talking about expanding the size of the World Cup, bringing in the Club World Championship, pretty much bringing in year -round football, which is going to really profound the effect of the elite players that you were talking about earlier. 

Alexander Bielefeld 31:11

Yeah, and look, I mean, I think there's a massive part when you just look into the technology sector, this crossroads between health and performance tech, see a massive amount of new companies entering the space on either the player side or the club side with all sorts of new applications trying to make sense of player -related data. 

Alexander Bielefeld 31:33

But it's so far very unregulated market also in terms of stand who's doing what, what data is collected for what purpose. And I mean, we have published together with FIFA the [unintelligable] of player rights just ahead of the Qatar World Cup. 

Alexander Bielefeld 31:51

And that's probably one of the areas where I think from a, just from a layman, from a union perspective, yeah, it's the start of a journey also for us to really understand what's going on behind the scenes. 

Alexander Bielefeld 32:05

Yeah, and I think that's a journey in general, the industry is on as well. 

Francesco Belcastro 32:10

That's great. I think that Dr. Alex Culvin is just joining us on the line. So welcome, Alex. Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us. 

Alex Culvin 32:18

Thanks for having me. 

Guy Burton 32:19

Well, thank you. And one of the things we usually sometimes like to ask guest as well is whether they have a football team. And so we're curious, which is yours? 

Alex Culvin 32:27

Yet you've caught me on a bad moment. Guy after Liverpool got battered last night, 3 -1 by Arsenal, but I support Liverpool. 

Guy Burton 32:34

Okay. Have you bee... So from childhood? So did you used to go to Anfield as well? 

Alex Culvin 32:42

Yeah, I come from the family of season ticket holders at Anfield, so I've been brought up on the football club. 

Guy Burton 32:51

And I think one of the first things we wanted to ask is that we are going to come to what FIFPRO does. We've talked with Alexander about what FIFPRO does and we're curious to hear from you what, whether there are issues that women's footballers face that are similar or different to the men's. 

Guy Burton 33:07

But one of the things that we start, wanted to start out by asking is because you are the first professional footballer we've had on the show as well: What an organization like FIFPRO or the PFA... basically labour organizations, what does it look like from the changing room and for players? 

Guy Burton 33:22

Are you actively involved from the very start? You've made the journey from footballer to labor rights advocate. So can you take us a bit through that? Were you naturally inclined to do that from the very beginning? 

Guy Burton 33:35

Do players tend to feel like that? Or do they tend to sort of just take it up as they sort of get closer to... Or they start thinking about what they're going to do after their careers? 

Alex Culvin 33:45

Yeah, I think there's not a one size fits all approach to player activism and advocacy. I think for me specifically, I guess I grew up in a household of activists, really. My dad was part of the Labour Party from when I was very, very young. 

Alex Culvin 34:04

He used to take me on lots of marches when I was young. Some of us, I think, proudest moments of me shouting, "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out," against Margaret Thatcher in the 80s. So I think for me, that was kind of like an actual inclination, I guess, when I experience or observe injustices. 

Alex Culvin 34:28

It lights a fire in my belly, I guess, and I'm inclined and have a natural inclination to see justice for either myself or other players, I guess. And when I was playing at Bristol, actually in the FAWSL in its first year, we had Mark Samson as manager, who later was sacked as England manager. 

Alex Culvin 34:56

And there was a couple of issues that I encountered as a player in that team that were labour rights issues, were workplace issues. And when I saw to kind of remedy this and rectify this, what I recognised quite quickly was that there was very limited structures in place where players could formally highlight issues that they were encountering within their clubs. 

Alex Culvin 35:32

And actually, when players do highlight issues, there's this real retaliation that can occur. And I'm often with ex -players from that retaliation. And the retaliation can vary, that can just be benched, that can be left out of the squad. 

Alex Culvin 35:47

That can also be contract renewal. There's various escalations that clubs use against players when they raise concerns about their workplace conditions. And so that for me was my first real taste. Before that, I played at Everton under a brilliant manager, Mo Marley. 

Alex Culvin 36:07

I'd also played at AZ, a very, very professional club. And the treatments of players were that of high performance athletes. And that all changed for me a little bit when I got to Bristol. And I think from that moment, it also stimulated for me a kind of intellectualisation of this process. 

Alex Culvin 36:27

And I wanted to investigate this more. I went on to do a Masters, which looked at kind of the unintended consequences of professionalisation. And then I looked at the employment and workplace conditions of professional women footballers for my PhD. 

Alex Culvin 36:42

And I think what stood out for me most interestingly is that since I left football, like probably six years before, not much had changed for the players. And this kind of like not, you know, one size fits all approach to activism. 

Alex Culvin 36:59

Like what I mean by that is when players encounter difficulties, it's either ingrained in them, I guess, from a young age in the way that it was for me. Or then you see players who have experienced these transgressions in their career, whether that's like an employment issue, whether that's, you know, sexual assault in the workplace, whether that's emotional abuse, whatever it is, violence in the workplace. 

Alex Culvin 37:21

And it also, it probably feels for them like a recognition, same as what I had, where there's actually no way for me to lodge this complaint. And if I do so, you know, there's retribution that can be taken and therefore I lose my career. 

Alex Culvin 37:36

So it's really interesting for us, at FIFPRO, when, when like, you know, the media questions, like, you know, why didn't players just speak out? And it's like, they're livelihood is at risk constantly on a day to day basis, particularly in women's football, where the contracts, and I know we'll get onto this in a little bit, but the contracts are notoriously very, very short. 

Alex Culvin 37:55

You're talking sometimes six months contracts, a year contracts, and you're expecting players to raise concerns where their careers can just be over like that. So I think the, the, the kind of the activism that we see in players really starts to emerge at very different points. 

Alex Culvin 38:13

And this can be individual activism and this can be like team activism, like what you're seeing, for example, in Spain, Jamaica, Nigeria, you know, the, the list in women's football, unfortunately, is very long. 

Alex Culvin 38:24

So yeah, I don't think there's a one size all approach. But I think what we've noticed, and I guess a trend in women's football now is that actually players are recognising that they do have a voice and that voice is very, very powerful when it comes in as a collective and you can really instigate and activate real change within their work environments. 

Francesco Belcastro 38:50

Yeah, that's great. I mean, you mentioned that yourself, you referred to it in the first answer, but your remit at FIFPRO is specifically related to women's football. I was wondering what you could tell us a bit about the specific challenges. 

Francesco Belcastro 39:05

I think you mentioned one of the short contracts, which is something that whenever we hear about this, it's always stunning, but what are the main differences? What are the main themes that you'd say you see from women perspective in terms of trade union challenges particularly? 

Alex Culvin 39:22

There are a couple of really big industrial issues that we encounter like on a day -to -day basis and obviously one of them and kind of maybe the overarching one is gender discrimination. So if you think about women's football there's only women and men's football there's two distinct labour markets if you like with one government structure. And that government structure was set up just to cater to men's football because professional women's football did not exist when the government structure was set up. And that kind of... And I don't believe in trickle down economics but I do believe in trickle down effects, and kind of like the domino effect so when that structure is set up and it's catered for and developed mainly by white middle -class men catering to a labour market that is for men's football. There's policies and practice that have developed over a long period of time that are built on this on this male model. And that means that women are discriminated against on multiple levels, you know. This is structural and systematic and discrimination that we face. So that's kind of like what I would say is like the overall overarching theme if you like. And then if if you break it down into either like layers or verticals, every every issue that we encounter is prefaced by that discrimination, whether that's kind of like an economic argument, whether that's a contractual argument,  whether that's an abusive argument, whether that's kind of like prize money at an international level or a domestic level, there's kind of like verticals and kind of layers that women are always hit hitting the kind of like the discrimination that they feel. And I think what that kind of neatly sets us up to talk about is the differences in the advocacy that we see. So women have been fighting whether it's it's been able to, you know, in 1921 in England to just be able to get on a FA affiliated pitch versus now when we talk about prize money at the World Cup or the FA Cup for example in England. The disparity is huge, but women are generationally built to fight injustice because they've had to fight for every moment that they get. Every kind of like, quote unquote win, that we get whether that's being able to enter a pitch or whether that's you know for the first time at the Women's World Cup in 2023 where women for the first time were paid for their participation in the World Cup. The kind of the scale of differences is huge obviously the progress has been made it's very slow but women are built to fight discrimination and that's not just in in the football world but you know that's you can talk about anywhere place in the world academia is another real example of that. But you know this, nothing is taken for granted in women's football and they have to fight and fight and fight and fight. And that, actually is, is exhausting. You know you get to that point where and I and I have it you know working in the football governance industry, where it is absolutely mentally and physically and emotionally exhausting having to fight for every small win that you get.And that's no different to the players on the pitch. The difference is I guess for players is that, an athlete's you know across the world and this is whether it's talking about gender discrimination, race, sexual abuse, whatever, it's always athletes that are leading the way. We are led by the athletes because they are so innovative, they are so determined and they, you know, they are fighting for space now. Women are fighting for space in this, kind of... not only male dominated but you know it's the male game is highly commodified.And so what we... what that means is, what we've got to do and the kind of the the strategies and innovations got to be different. So you've got to almost sometimes circumvent a system whilst simultaneously and in parallel making the baby steps of trying to change the system. You can also circumvent it for a quicker kind of escalation and course of action if that makes sense. So I think the issues that women face...

Alex Culvin 43:58

You know, there's some similar issues, for example, workload, discrimination, they're same issues. The forms take different manifestations, but it's an industrial issue that's shared. But then there are industrial issues that are completely different. 

Alex Culvin 44:14

And it all starts with this historical discrimination. And it's not something that I wanna labor and talk about too much, but I think it's like a missing piece that misses from the critical discourse that we hear quite often about women's football. 

Alex Culvin 44:29

When you listen or watch, or read the media, the way that the position women's sport quite often is that it's just being catapulted down from Mars. And they're like, oh my God, what's this amazing thing that we can see now? 

Alex Culvin 44:43

And women can actually play football, where there's actually the standing on the shoulders of giants that have gone on and so generation after generation for the kind of the fruition that we see today and the professionalization that we see today. 

Francesco Belcastro 44:58

That's great. We have an excellent episode with Carrie Dunn, the first one we made that discusses a lot of the challenges and the historical context. I think it kind of complements very well what Alex was saying. 

Francesco Belcastro 45:09

So listeners who are enjoying this episode should also go and check that out. 

Guy Burton 45:13

No, no, I should say, but with Carrie's episode, we very much looked at the state of play in England as well, specifically. Given that FIFPRO represents footballers across the world, I wonder if you could say a little bit about the type of challenges that, say, European women face versus, say, women playing football in other parts of the world, other regions of the world. 

Alex Culvin 45:38

Yeah, I think what we've seen with kind of like professionalization, there's been an acceleration in some parts of the world, particularly Europe and North America. And then there's this, which is also very fragmented. 

Alex Culvin 45:51

If you think about like the way that the NWSL has been, there's been three leagues that it's like boom and bust a little bit, like the capitalist system. If you like what happens, you see that kind of in parallel in women's football. 

Alex Culvin 46:03

But there is a kind of professionalization and a professional game that's quite strong now in some part of Europe and some part of the US. Mexico is a good example as well. Canada's just starting its first professional league in 2025. 

Alex Culvin 46:19

And then you have other parts of the world that are quite, er, slower to professionalize. What we do with FIFPRO is we have regional specificity, the knowledge we have. We break the kind of FIFPRO umbrella down into divisions. 

Alex Culvin 46:36

So we have Division Africa, Division South America, Division Central and North America, Europe and so on. And they have the regional understanding and the regional specificities. And they obviously have much more of a knowledge of what's happening like on the ground in their regions. 

Alex Culvin 46:55

That said, there are distinct differences, but also real strong commonalities that you see across the markets, whether that's in Europe or not. And what you see in, for example, Africa, South America, some parts of Asia is that there's just not enough competitive games either on an international level or if you talk about within countries, within those continents, if you like, there's not professional leagues that are set up. 

Alex Culvin 47:28

So whilst in Europe and North America, you've got professional leagues that could be improved, i .e. the quality, the conditions and all of that. They've got a professional league and I use that term very loosely because what we understand as professional as FIFPRO and what kind of the outside outside of FIFPRO understand as professional. 

Alex Culvin 47:49

The gap is also different. You know, the gap also exists in that. But if we just take the kind of case, we understand that a professionalization, i .e. players have contracts, they're paid, etc., in Africa, South America, in Asia, there's some professionalization, but there's not enough professional leagues for players to play in. 

Alex Culvin 48:11

And that's why you see so much migration from those countries and the top players in those countries going to play in North America and going to play in Europe. So you've kind of got that as a professionalization issue and the number of games. 

Alex Culvin 48:27

You then got the players who are playing professional football, which is obviously FIFPRO's remit. We deal with employment and labour and that's professional football. Those who are playing professional football are just not earning enough money. 

Alex Culvin 48:42

So we did a study very recently on multiple job holding across 12 countries, across all continents in the world. And there's a high proportion of players that are playing and they clout and class themselves as a professional footballer, but also have a second form of occupation. 

Alex Culvin 49:00

Which again, beyond the economic argument of the problem with that, there's kind of like a well -being issue. There's a burnout issue. There's a mental burnout issue. There's also being able to juggle sometimes two jobs on top of a professional football career. 

Alex Culvin 49:20

A lot of those players were also international players. So they have to take long either unpaid or paid vacation from their second form of employment to go and play in international tournaments. These are all problems that we see manifested across the world. 

Alex Culvin 49:35

And then I guess a problem that also exists in women's football is where there's professional environments, i .e. there's professional football. And I'm saying quote unquote, and players have paid some money. 

Alex Culvin 49:53

They have a very short contract. So by the FIFA definition, that means they're professional. the kind of lack of professional structure is also what we see quite regularly is where forms of abuse start to manifest and whether that's psychological all the way to sexual abuse. 

Alex Culvin 50:14

That lack of professional environment can manifest into forms of abusive behaviour and they're the issues that you see right across the world. They range in from, and you see in the case in the NWSL, one of the biggest leaders in the world, you see it right across the globe. 

Alex Culvin 50:37

So the badge of honour that a lot of clubs wear, where a professional club, but they don't actually have high performance structures in place or high performance, multidisciplinary teams that support the players, that means that an unprofessional environment and that means that players can't thrive either on the pitch or off the pitch. 

Alex Culvin 50:56

And that's a common thread that we see across the globe. And I mean, we've only got a short amount of time. You know, there's so many issues that we encounter. But yeah, kind of the economic one, the professional one, having a multiple job holding and then the abuse that we see as a consequence of the unprofessionalism is a kind of the issues that I would cite in more developing countries. 

Francesco Belcastro 51:25

Alex, we need to get you back and we need to discuss some of these topics more in detail. But before we let you go, who do you want to see as next Liverpool manager after Klopp leaves? That's a question I cannot avoid asking you! 

Alex Culvin 51:42

No, I think I'll probably like Xavi Alonso. I don't think he's proven. But I think he's probably someone that the fans will give loads of time to. And I think any manager that comes into kind of the clock project, if you like, over the last eight years is someone that's going to need time. 

Alex Culvin 51:58

So probably Xavi would be my choice. I watched a couple of like Bayer Leverkusen games and he played a really nice brand of football. He's obviously played under some really incredible managers. 

Alex Culvin 52:13

So he's kind of education, going into management has been top level. And he gets the club. The fans love him. 

Francesco Belcastro 52:21

Thank you very much. I know... Thanks for indulging me. I know the topics were discussed and more important as a football fan, I wanted to get your view on this. Thank you. 

Guy Burton 52:29

Thank you so much, Alex, for taking the time. We really appreciate it. 

Alex Culvin 52:33

Yeah, no problem. Thanks a lot for your time. Cheers. 

Francesco Belcastro 52:36

Thank you. Thank you, Alexander as well. Thank you, Alexander. 

Alexander Bielefeld 52:38

Thank you for having me. It was fantastic. Thanks for the invitation. 

Guy Burton 52:41

So that was fascinating. So what do we need to tell our listeners? 

Francesco Belcastro 52:46

Well, we need to tell our listeners the usual things: They need to go on their app where they're getting the podcast from, whether it's Spotify, Apple and like it, rate it, get in touch with their friends and family and tell them about the podcast. 

Francesco Belcastro 53:02

But they also need to get in touch with us because we are always keen to think about new episodes and guests to invite and any feedback. We are on all of the main media and we all of this, the social networks, Twitter and Facebook and Blue Sky and you are on LinkedIn. 

Francesco Belcastro 53:20

So they can easily get in touch with us. And what else do we need to remind them? 

Guy Burton 53:26

Well, can you also remind the listeners who we're speaking to next week? 

Francesco Belcastro 53:30

So next week is gonna be Paul Watson on the politics of football and small nations. 

Guy Burton 53:35

Well that sounds pretty cool. So I look forward to that. So great. So we'll see, I'll speak to you again next week then Francesco. Take care. 

Francesco Belcastro 53:43

Good luck with your technology this week as well, Guy. Good luck with the microphone and all the related issues. 

Guy Burton 53:48

All right, 

Francesco Belcastro 53:50

Bye, bro. Bye bye.

Guy Burton 53:50

Bye.