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GENEVA (AP) — FIFA offered peace talks to the global networks of player unions and domestic leagues on Friday after they threatened legal action about soccer’s congested international calendar.

FIFPRO and the World Leagues Association aired long-held frustrations at FIFA adding new and bigger events — including a revamped 32-team Club World Cup next year and a 48-team men’s World Cup in 2026 — without fully consulting their members, they claimed.

The 2024-25 schedule in European soccer also will be squeezed by UEFA expanding its three main club competitions, including a Champions League format with 36 teams. UEFA club events will occupy 10 midweeks of fixtures dates, including two new ones in January, instead of the current six.

FIFA defended its role in managing the international calendar in writing to both soccer organizations, offering to “identify suitable dates and locations” for a meeting, in a letter seen by The Associated Press.

All parties should meet in London on the sidelines of the Champions League final on June 1 at Wembley Stadium. Real Madrid plays Borussia Dortmund in a marquee game typically attended by FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

A meeting is possible in the pause between club seasons, later in June into mid-July, FIFA interim secretary general Mattias Grafstrom wrote in the letter.

Grafstrom pushed back on claims FIFA prioritized its business interests over the well-being of players and domestic leagues, and questioned if FIFPRO and World Leagues had threatened legal action against other competition organizers.

FIFA was responsible, Grafstrom wrote, for “a fractional amount of the total elite club games around the world,” and had a duty to reinvest its billions of dollars of revenue in developing the game in 211 member federations.

He added, “While we disagree with the tenor and content of your letter, we have nonetheless taken note of your concerns and are more than happy to continue our ongoing dialogue on this important topic.”

Key FIFA decisions and projects in recent years have emerged since May 2021 when it shut down the Football Stakeholders Committee that included union and league officials, plus representative of clubs and national federations.

That panel was created four years earlier to debate and prepare changes to soccer regulations and competitions.

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GENEVA (AP) — FIFA has been warned of legal action from players and national leagues if it does not backtrack on adding new and bigger competitions to the congested calendar of men’s international soccer.

FIFA is criticized for “unilateral decisions that benefit its own competitions and commercial interests” — including the World Cup and expanded 32-team Club World Cup that debuts next year — in a letter sent by global players union FIFPRO and the World Leagues Association seen on Thursday by The Associated Press.

The letter claims it is “inherently abusive” for FIFA to continue adding games while forcing players and leagues to adapt.

FIFA is urged to reschedule the revamped Club World Cup due in the United States in June 2025. The lineup includes Champions League finalists Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund plus Manchester City and Bayern Munich.

That month-long tournament will test stadiums and logistics for the first 48-team, 104-game men’s World Cup staged one year later across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The unions and leagues also want FIFA to “review its decision” — effectively scrap — the Intercontinental Cup set for this December involving the same continental champions that will play in the Club World Cup six months later.

Talks also should reopen on the FIFA-managed calendar through 2030 when clubs must release players for national team games, they wrote.

“FIFA has ignored repeated attempts by leagues and unions to engage on this issue,” FIFPRO and World Leagues said, aiming to step up pressure before the soccer body’s ruling council and congress of 211 member federations meet next week in Bangkok, Thailand.

“Should FIFA refuse to formally commit to resolving the issues, as set out above, at its upcoming council, we shall be compelled to advise our members on the options available to them, both individually and collectively, to proactively safeguard their interests,” the letter stated.

“These options include legal action against FIFA on which we have now commissioned external expert advice,” FIFPRO and Zurich-based World Leagues warn.

FIFA has been contacted for comment.

Player workloads and domestic fixture schedules also are being squeezed by UEFA’s expansion of its three season-long club competitions.

Teams in the Champions League and Europa League next season will play two guaranteed extra games in an opening-stage schedule running from September through January instead of December, using 10 midweeks instead of six across the three competitions.

“Players are being pushed beyond their limits, with significant injury risks and impacts on their welfare and fundamental rights,” FIFPRO and World Leagues warn, adding the fixture squeeze is harming the ability of leagues to organize properly.

FIFA conservatively budgeted for more than $11 billion in revenue from 2023-26 — about a 50% increase from the previous four years — that did not include money from the inaugural Club World Cup expansion and a top-tier sponsorship confirmed last month with Saudi Arabian state oil firm Aramco. More Saudi sponsorship is expected with the kingdom set to host the 2024 men’s World Cup.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has consistently said the extra money and playing opportunities are needed to raise the level of teams from outside Europe and South America, which traditionally dominate the World Cup and other international events.

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When Nasser Al-Khelaifi’s Qatar Sports Investment acquired Paris Saint-Germain in 2011, the club’s new president mapped out a five-year plan for Champions League glory, as if winning a knockout tournament was only a matter of arithmetic and probability scales. They signed the best players money could buy and went through them like bubble gum, discarding one after another for the next-best flavor. The years went by without them getting any closer, but when they landed Kylian Mbappe, PSG thought they had finally bought their ticket to the dance.

Now, as QSI’s 13th year as majority owners of PSG comes and goes without a Champions League trophy locked inside their cabinet doors, as Mbappe, the crown jewel of their multi-billion-euro enterprise, exits right, and as Borussia Dortmund, without Erling Haaland or Jude Bellingham, beat them to this year’s final, France’s bougiest club must grapple not just with the familiar gut punch of humiliation, but with the reality that their stated goal is far from guaranteed.

That the Bundesliga’s fifth-place team will play June 1 at Wembley Stadium is a slap in the face to a club like PSG that wields transfer funds like hush money ahead of trial. They have spent with impunity, buying up players without really knowing where to put them on the field, hoarding them so other teams can’t have them. They have lost hundreds of millions of euros in recent seasons but somehow escaped the wrath of UEFA’s financial watchdog. They’ve filtered through some of the best coaches in the game and eschewed high-maintenance stars for moldable young talent, an admirable, if not risk-free pursuit. (Just ask Chelsea.)

But nothing has changed their results in Europe.

It’s beautiful that football these days can still produce a Champions League finalist like Dortmund, a team usually content to have a seat at the table. With a tight budget and system designed to flip players for a profit, Dortmund are transient, always in flux, and a place where trophies are wanted, not demanded. And Dortmund are a big club. The Yellow Wall, a steep block of more than 20,000 supporters, sends chills down the spine of anyone who visits the Westfalenstadion. There’s a sense of purpose there. Dortmund aren’t aimlessly wandering through competitions. They have the desire to compete and win. But they don’t have PSG’s delusions of grandeur.

That’s not a criticism of Les Parisiens. They are who they are, a fashion brand fronted by extremely good athletes who oftentimes play good football. Luis Enrique, the latest manager to sit on the hot seat, has at least assembled some coherence in the team, establishing possession as a cardinal rule. He even sat out Mbappe once the club learned he would exercise his right to leave at the end of the season.

There’s no one bigger than PSG, and yet, who are they really? They have stores in New York, Toronto, Miami, Tokyo, and many other tourist destinations. They have a team that regularly wins Ligue 1, where they can bully opponents with a fraction of the budget over a much longer 34-game season. They have limitless funds tied to Qatar’s oil-rich ruling family. They have a president whose friendship with UEFA counterpart Aleksander Ceferin and oversized influence on the European Club Association seem to keep PSG in good standing. They have everything, except the one thing they’ve been seeking this whole time.

Football is a funny game, and today’s conversation could’ve been different had PSG converted any of the four shots that rattled against the post during Tuesday’s 1-0 semifinal second-leg loss. None of it would’ve been a conversation at all had they played to their potential in the 2020 Champions League final they lost to Bayern Munich.

But that’s the point: It’s hard to have such a black-and-white view of success. Pep Guardiola went 10 years without making the Champions League final and 12 before winning it again. That didn’t make him a bad manager. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, formerly PSG’s all-time leading scorer, and his idol, Brazilian phenomenon Ronaldo, didn’t win it all. That doesn’t diminish their legendary status. Winning a knockout tournament is much more than simple addition. It’s luck and it’s timing. It’s about good matchups, and sometimes capturing lighting in a bottle. And sometimes the very best team wins.

Al-Khelaifi took over the club all those years ago to be the best in Europe – and reap the rewards that such prestige would grant his native Qatar in their eternal search for acceptance in the Western world – but PSG have in many ways accomplished more than what a single Champions League win would ever offer. They are globally recognized, a destination for touring A-list celebrities, linked with pretty much anyone that matters in the game, and now, a real part of the European football establishment.

Mbappe’s helped them achieve a special place in the consciousness of the average football fan but also of anyone who’s ever walked by their stores, watched highlights, or heard about him scoring a hat-trick in a World Cup final. He’s won games on his own and scored three, four, and five goals in a single 90 minutes of football for PSG. He has fronted one of the biggest sports power plays in history.

Losing him hurts. But it also allows PSG to ask themselves who they really want to be and what it will take to get there. The plan actually matters now.

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Real Madrid needs fortress Bernabeu to live up to its reputation.

Paris Saint-Germain could do with some magic from the departing Kylian Mbappe.

Otherwise we could be set for a repeat of the 2013 Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, who both showed in the first legs of the semifinals that they could yet block a Madrid vs. Mbappe showdown at Wembley Stadium.

That has felt like an ideal finale with Mbappe widely expected to move to the Spanish giant when he leaves PSG as a free agent at the end of the season.

But based on the first legs, Bayern and Dortmund haven’t read that script.

Bayern dominated Madrid for long periods at the Allianz Arena on Tuesday before Vinicius Junior’s late penalty secured a 2-2 draw for the record 14-time European Cup winner.

A day later, Germany striker Niclas Fullkrug struck the only goal of the game at the Westfalenstadion to give Dortmund a 1-0 advantage over PSG.

With such fine margins, there is all to play for in the second legs when Madrid and PSG will both have home advantage.

Madrid is unbeaten at home all season and targeting a record-extending 18th European Cup final – and a ninth in the Champions League era, which is also a record.

While six-time winner Bayern showed its credentials in the first leg, it has endured a troubled season in which its 11-year reign as German champion was ended by Bayer Leverkusen.

PSG’s dominance in France shows no sign of stopping after winning a record-extending 12th league title. But it has not been able to transfer that form to the Champions League despite signing some of the world’s greatest players — including Lionel Messi, Neymar and Mbappe.

Messi and Neymar have departed and Mbappe is set to leave. Which is why it would be the perfect send-off for the forward to finally end the Qatar-backed club’s search for European club soccer’s elite trophy.

Defeat at Dortmund has cast doubt over that, but PSG already produced a comeback to beat Barcelona in the second leg of the quarterfinals and Mbappe will be desperate to avoid an anticlimactic end to the season.

PSG vs. Dortmund (Tuesday)

PSG coach Luis Enrique has to rethink his plans in defense with Lucas Hernandez facing a long spell out after rupturing his left knee ACL in the first leg. He successfully underwent an operation on Saturday.

Hernandez was in good form and had also formed a solid central defensive partnership with Marquinhos, helping the Brazilian recapture his best form recently.

Enrique must decide who to select between Lucas Beraldo, utility player Danilo or Milan Skriniar.

The 20-year-old is Beraldo is inexperienced at the highest level, Danilo is reliable and good in the air but lacks pace and mobility, while Skriniar has only recently returned from a three-month injury layoff following ankle surgery.

Skriniar has played only one full game since then and Enrique may not risk him against a physical striker like Fullkrug, who poses a threat with his strong running and direct style of play.

Losing a player of Hernandez’s quality is a headache Enrique really didn’t need, especially with his side having to score and more likely exposed to counter-attacks.

Enrique will also look for an improved performance from Kylian Mbappe, who failed to impress last week.

Dortmund counterpart Edin Terzic was able to rest his entire team with the exception of goalkeeper Gregor Kobel as his B-side ran out 5-1 winners over Augsburg on Saturday.

Madrid vs. Bayern (Wednesday)

Madrid will face Bayern as the newly crowned Spanish league champions after clinching the title on Saturday. With the domestic title all but assured, Carlo Ancelotti rotated his lineup. Defender Nacho Fernandez was the only player to start both at Bayern and in its 3-0 win over Cadiz on Saturday.

The club is delaying the traditional celebration of its 36th league title with players and fans in downtown Madrid until Saturday to keep its focus on the Bayern game.

Madrid arrives to the second leg without any critical injuries and with all its scorers clicking. Jude Bellingham scored his 22nd goal overall in the win over Cadiz, while backups Brahim Diaz and Joselu Mato also found the net. Thibaut Courtois is expected to be in the squad, while Ancelotti has said that Andriy Lunin will again be in goal.

Bayern’s preparations were far from ideal with a 3-1 loss at Stuttgart and injury to Raphael Guerreiro, who had made a good impact after coming on at half time in the first leg against Madrid. Bayern confirmed Sunday he will miss Wednesday’s match.

Bayern defender Matthijs de Ligt missed the first leg with injury but rejoined team training on Sunday.

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AP Sports Writers Jerome Pugmire in Paris, Joseph Wilson in Barcelona and Ciaran Fahey in Berlin contributed.

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James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer