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Hello. We’re tackling football’s obsessive relationship with body fat today: are players paying for the sport’s addiction to data collection?
On the way:
Football’s Fat Fixation
Saint-Maximin and Mourinho in November (Burak Basturk/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Being called out in public
Head coaches and clubs are obsessed with data and marginal gains — but when it comes to body composition, is that push for perfection going too far?
Sarah Shephard spoke to nutritionists and sports scientists with experience at Premier League clubs about the sport’s relationship — or fixation — with body fat.
It is a subject that is often not handled with care. In March, Fenerbahce manager Jose Mourinho described Allan Saint-Maximin as “overweight” as part of his justification for dropping the winger.
Saint-Maximin (above) responded by taking to Instagram with a screenshot of his body composition (how much of a player’s body is fat, bone and muscle mass) measurements.
But a comment from a coach is just surface-level stuff. Sarah’s piece paints a picture of a sport in which players feel “spied on”, with nutritionists watching them eat in the dining room.
At some clubs, the squad’s weights and body fat percentages are publicly shared on leaderboards. At others, they have skinfold assessments to measure fat every four weeks — that’s more regularly than in Great Britain’s boxing team, who compete in a sport where weight is part of the eligibility criteria.
Sports nutrition consultant Dr Nessan Costello says a “culture of fear” is created “where players are judged on their physical appearance rather their football performance”.
Feeling the pressure
(Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Nutritionists label it data collection for the sake of data collection, with players not always told why they’re being measured or what the numbers mean in a sporting context.
And in a skill-based sport, what are the benefits? As James Morton, former head of nutrition at Liverpool, points out: “The evidence supporting changes in body composition and football performance is nowhere near as established as it is in other sports.”
Football’s obsession with body composition sticks. A study from players union FIFPro found one in five professional female footballers experienced disordered eating over a 12-month period. Arsenal and England striker Alessia Russo (above) spoke in 2023 about her fixation with calorie tracking during the Covid-19-enforced lockdown. “I wanted to be skinny and compete (at the highest level),” she said.
The conflict of appearance pressures versus performance was highlighted in the men’s game too with extreme diets, a “fear of carbohydrates” and players weighing themselves “multiple times a day”.
What’s striking is how many of the concerns experienced by footballers are shared by many of us; aesthetic pressure being heightened in the social media age, worrying about your appearance on holiday, the unrealistic strive for perfection. All in the pressure cooker of the professional football environment.
News Round-Up
What Are The Chances?
Opta’s supercomputer crunches the numbers
Anantaajith Raghuraman, with a little help from Opta, has done the calculations and the supercomputer ranks Mikel Arteta’s side as the Champions League favourites.
It’s been a steady rise for Arsenal, with their chances of winning the tournament going from six per cent in August to 27 per cent as they take a 3-0 lead into Wednesday’s quarter-final second leg against Real Madrid.
Arsenal will find out their potential semi-final opponents today as Paris Saint-Germain — third-favourites — take a 3-1 advantage to Aston Villa.
While Arsenal took the slow path to the favourites tag, PSG surged into the top three after their last-16 victory over Liverpool. Second-favourites Barcelona, who have bene given a 26 per cent chance of lifting the trophy in May, have a 4-0 lead before their second leg against Borussia Dortmund today.
However, as Anantaajith points out, the data cannot anticipate the unexpected, like Declan Rice suddenly scoring two brilliant free kicks. How will that graph (above) look on Thursday morning?
- The crew from the Totally Football Show — available free on Apple and Spotify — have previewed all the second-leg storylines in today’s episode.
Champions League quarter-final second legs (both 3pm/8pm):Borussia Dortmund vs Barcelona — Paramount+/TNT Sports; Aston Villa vs Paris Saint-Germain — Paramount+/Amazon Prime.
The Usual Suspects
Premier League clubs have ‘reached their limits’
The English Football Association has released its annual figures for payments made by clubs to agents and intermediaries. Chelsea again topped the pile after spending £60.3m ($79.8m) between February 2024 and February 2025. This brought the club’s outlay on agent fees in the three years under the Clearlake Capital-Todd Boehly ownership group to £179m (see above).
Chelsea have targeted young talent and long contracts in recent windows, but in the short term, they’re yet to produce a trophy or top-four finish to show for their outlay.
It’s a slowdown of sorts for Chelsea and the Premier League, with the overall top-flight spend of £409m marginally down on the past two seasons, when agent fees had swelled to record levels. As Philip Buckingham writes, “This would suggest limits have been reached.”
The figures really lay bare the gulf between the Premier League and the rest of the football pyramid. A shoutout to tier-five Aldershot Town, whose agent fees totalled just £286 (one upmarket air fryer).
- Speaking of transfers, on the back of interest in Liam Delap, The Athletic FC Podcast asked whether the Ipswich Town striker would be a better fit for Manchester United or Chelsea. It’s available to watch on YouTube.
Around The Athletic FC
(Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
And Finally…
Hull City’s Kasey Palmer was out of luck against his former side Coventry City in the Championship yesterday.
If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. And even then, you still might find your shot blocked by a wall of Coventry bodies.
(Top photo: Yagiz Gurtug/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Read the full article here