The Real Madrid and Belgium goalkeeper was unhappy over the match schedule during the Nations League and criticised football authorities.
Belgium lost back to back matches in the UEFA Nations League and bowed out of the competition. After their semi-final defeat at the hands of world champions France (3-2), Courtois termed the third-place match as “pointless”.
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The 29-year-old made it a point to criticise the football authorities following their 2-1 loss in the third-place against Italy:
“They can be angry about other teams wanting a Super League, but they don’t care about the players. They just care about their pockets.”
The Red Devils had to rest a bunch of their star players for the third-place match. Eden Hazard and Romelu Lukaku, often the first names on Roberto Martinez’s team sheet, faced muscular issues and were unavailable.
Courtois also stated that these extra matches are played just to generate additional revenue to fill UEFAs pockets. He also touched on the fact that both Italy and Belgium fielded a string of reserve players as the match was nothing more than a formality.
The footballing calendar has been harshly scheduled, especially over the last 18 months due to the pandemic. Courtois has played an astounding nine matches for club and country over the previous 30 days.
“We are not robots! It’s just more and more games, and less rest for us and nobody cares about us,”
he added.
The gap between last season and the current campaign was relatively short due to the Euro 2020. Moreover, next year’s World Cup in Qatar will be played in November. Courtois says that the players will have just three weeks break, which is insufficient if footballers are expected to operate at the highest level throughout the year.
