European clubs are at it again. Mexico have agreed to let captain Rafael Marquez skip the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the United States so that he can play for Barcelona in the King’s Cup final, assuming they qualify.

Meanwhile, Villarreal are urging their Chilean midfielder Matias Fernandez to sit out the Copa America in Venezuela and there are rumours in Brazil that Barcelona want Ronaldinho to do the same.

You can bet more players will be pressured into giving these tournaments a miss over the course of the next few weeks.
 
The strange thing in the Marquez case is that the Spanish federation is at fault for the clash of dates rather than CONCACAF. A look at FIFA’s co-ordinated calender makes it quite clear: June 6-24 Gold Cup and June 26-July 15 Copa America. The Spanish federation has encroached into the CONCACAF dates by staging the final rounds of La Liga on June 10 and 17 followed by the King’s Cup final on June 23.

Yet it is Mexico, not Barcelona, who are paying the price.
 
It does make you wonder about the future of international football. The European clubs complain until they are blue in the face about the African Nations Cup being staged in January. But when continental tournaments (apart from the European championship, of course) are played in June or July, they insist their players should take a rest - even though they are happy to drag them halfway across the world shortly afterwards for lucrative pre-season friendlies.
 
Should Latin America and Africa just resign themselves to a role as breeding grounds for the world’s top talent. Are they really asking too much if, occasionally, they want to see their own players performing competitively in their own back yards?

Brian Homewood is a Reuters sports correspondent based in Rio de Janeiro

Update: As Brian predicted, Kaka has started the ball rolling by asking to be excused the competition. A columnist in the Folha de Sao Paulo wrote: “It’s a relief for the other players who don’t want to go. Now they can argue they have the same right. Ronaldinho is one of them.” Let’s see what happens.

Kevin Fylan, Berlin