Manchester City hold private talks on substitution rule revamp at European summit | OneFootball

Officials representing Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal met in Rome last week to discuss a revamp of the substitutes rule in Europe’s major leagues, as per a new report.

Elite clubs across Europe met at the European Football Clubs’ (EFC) general assembly in Rome last week to discuss and debate the latest issues in the modern game, with football’s commercial nature growing and concerns rising over the expectations on professional athletes.

High-profile footballers across the globe have come together to voice their frustrations at the game’s governing bodies, who have set unrealistic demands from professional footballers and overhauled the calendar to accommodate more games at the club and national level for nothing more than commercial profits.

Manchester City’s Ballon d’Or winning midfielder Rodri spoke on the issue last year and succumbed to an ACL tear in a 2-2 draw with Arsenal just weeks on from imploring football’s governing bodies to take a step back and alleviate the burden on professional footballers.

The BBC have reported that whilst the subject was not on the official agenda in the Rome summit last week, private discussions were held by attending clubs on the prospect of increasing the number of substitutes in the game from five to six.

Moreover, there were talks held on the possibility of increasing the size of registered league squads from 25 to 28 players – with concerns relayed by the BBC in England over whether a wider squad would actually alleviate the growing strain on players in an increasingly demanding schedule of games.

Senior executives representing Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal were in attendance at the meet, which is believed to have staged an early round of discussions on the aforementioned subjects to gauge a sense of where clubs across Europe stand on the matters.

There have been complaints of a growing stop-start nature of Premier League football since the five substitutions rule came into being – and the prospect of another substitute will only derail the flow of the second-half as clubs look to thwart their opponents’ momentum with tactical changes.

It is not yet known where Manchester City officials stood on the issues addressed at the Rome meet, with the Blues set to return to Premier League duties this weekend as Everton visit the Etihad Stadium after the October international break.

City have been in fine form since August and after suffering two losses in their opening trio of Premier League games, Pep Guardiola’s men have turned a corner and have reaped the rewards of the the pair of Erling Haaland and Gianluigi Donnarumma excelling in both boxes.

Guardiola is not renowned for making too many changes and has endured heavy criticism from certain quarters of the Manchester City fanbase on social media for his dormant efforts to bring in reinforcements from the bench when his side have lacked inspiration in the starting XI.

City have avoided defeat in all competitions since August and Guardiola has been unusually lucky in the recent international break, with no fresh injury concerns bothering the Catalan ahead of Saturday’s showdown with Everton.