UEFA and France’s leagues are not planning to follow FIFA’s broader use of cooling breaks, now a flashpoint at the 2026 World Cup.
European football authorities are showing little appetite for following FIFA’s expanded use of cooling breaks at the 2026 World Cup, a practice that has become a fresh point of tension over player welfare, match rhythm and television money.
The issue centers on mid-half stoppages that FIFA describes as breaks for players to drink water and cool down. The World Cup is being staged across the United States, Canada and Mexico, where some host cities face high temperatures, but the controversy has grown because the pauses have also been used in matches played in ordinary weather conditions, Varzesh3 reported.
Each break lasts about three minutes, giving players time to hydrate and broadcasters a window to air more advertising. With $4.2 billion in television rights paid to FIFA, critics argue the policy risks turning a health measure into a commercial tool.
The rule itself is not new. Critics cited in the report say FIFA is using more broadly a provision introduced by the International Football Association Board in 2014 for emergency weather conditions. That has raised a wider question for European competitions: whether the World Cup model could spread into club and national-team football on the continent.
UEFA’s position, according to the report, is that cooling breaks should be used only in specific conditions and under defined temperature criteria. Before kickoff, a UEFA match delegate measures the conditions, and the referee may authorize a stoppage only if the heat index crosses the required threshold. In UEFA competitions, such pauses can last from 90 seconds to three minutes.
There is no current discussion inside UEFA about extending the practice across European club or national-team matches, and officials have stressed that the body is not seeking to create additional television advertising inventory.
France is taking a similar line. Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 have used water breaks for years during extreme heat, but French league officials are not planning to apply them to every match.
“FIFA’s justification is the very high temperature at match venues,” a French league source told L’Equipe, according to Varzesh3. “France’s weather conditions are different and more moderate, and for that reason such a plan is not on our agenda.”
For now, the 2026 World Cup remains the main test case for FIFA’s broader approach. UEFA and French football appear set to keep cooling breaks tied to heat and player safety rather than make them a routine feature of the match broadcast.
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