Fulham first team coach Luis Boa Morte has warned of the potential devastating impact of the forthcoming Qatar World Cup on players and club football during a football summit in his native Portugal.
The former Fulham winger, now number two to Marco Silva at Craven Cottage, took part in the fourth edition of FuteCOM, the National Meeting of Professional Football Press and Communication Offices, which was scheduled to coincide with the final stages of the Portuguese League Cup this week. He warned that coaches and clubs will have to pay particular attention to the management and recovery of players involved in the World Cup as well as those who will not have any football to play as domestic leagues cease during the tournament.
Boa Morte said: “Management has to be done. It is necessary to understand what to do with the players who stay and those who return from the World Cup. Those who return from Qatar will have a gross change of routines. In addition to the adverse temperature, even with the climatization of the stadiums, there is still the ‘jet lag’, which sometimes takes ten to 15 days to pass.”