The Professional Footballers’ Association want the game’s authorities to put a stop to bomb squads, having lobbied the Premier League and FIFA to get strict with the union appalled at the rising use of the practice at Chelsea and beyond.
Banishments from first-team training have become a recurring theme of transfer windows, with one senior source at the PFA describing it as ‘unacceptable’.
While not the only club to have deployed the tactic this summer, Chelsea have attracted the greatest scrutiny after telling Raheem Sterling he cannot train under Enzo Maresca.
Sterling has fallen to the same fate as Trevoh Chalobah, Ben Chilwell and several others who the Blues are seeking to offload before Friday’s deadline.
Mail Sport has learned the PFA have been in contact with Chelsea players and their representatives to offer assistance, as well as exiles elsewhere in the country.
The PFA is looking to put a stop to bomb squads after Chelsea banished 13 players this summer
Raheem Sterling is one of the big names who has been forced to train away from the first team
The union are unable to comment on specific clubs or cases but when aware of a problem, they proactively try to help in finding a resolution to avoid an escalation.
The PFA are still actively pushing for bomb squads to be properly tackled, feeling such situations should be prevented from occurring in the Premier League and further down the footballing pyramid.
It is understood the union have been campaigning in the background for years and insiders remain unsatisfied at its prevalence in the professional game.
It is felt the Premier League Handbook, which serves as a contract between them and their members, is too vague on this issue.
Under the ‘duties and obligations of the player’ section, footballers are told they must ‘attend at any reasonable place for the purposes of and to participate in training and match preparation’.
They are also ordered to ‘maintain a high standard of physical fitness at all times’ which sources have suggested is too open to interpretation.
The Premier League feel this is an area governed by FIFA, however, with guidance from the world governing body communicated to all clubs.
FIFA previously updated their regulations on the ‘status and transfer of players’ to warn clubs in regard to ‘abusive conduct’. However, there is frustration that the practice has remained prevalent in spite of that change to their literature.
Chelsea feel they have gone about the bomb squad appropriately with the group overseen by Carlo Cudicini
Ben Chilwell (left) and Trevoh Chalobah (right) have joined Sterling in the exiled group
It can be a messy situation legally. Indeed Mail Sport knows of at least one Chelsea player who has been contacted by lawyers interested in exploring his options, with the PFA’s general counsel James King having questioned whether this practice breaches employment law.
Chelsea feel they have gone about this summer in an appropriate manner by having their exiles train together in a specific group led by their loan technical coach Carlo Cudicini as opposed to telling them to join the kids.
They believe this allows them to focus on their futures and limits any chances of them living in false hope of a first-team reprieve under Maresca.
Mail Sport revealed last week how Chelsea had as many as 13 in their bomb squad, compromising of Sterling, Chilwell, Chalobah, Armando Broja, Romelu Lukaku, Kepa Arrizabalaga, David Datro Fofana, Angelo, Lucas Bergstrom, Deivid Washington, Tino Anjorin, Alex Matos and Harvey Vale.