This past weekend, Melbourne City played against Sydney FC in the 2023/24 A-League Women (ALW) grand final, as three players were watching their teammates from the sidelines.
This season, City’s forward Holly McNamara and Sydney’s defenders Natalie Tobin and Kirsty Fenton have all endured ACL injuries, sidelining them for six months to a year.
With the season officially ending, they were among six other footballers from various ALW clubs sidelined in the stands, bringing the league’s ACL injury tally to nine.
Similar to numerous professional women’s leagues globally, Australia’s premier competition has been notably impacted by what players have informally labelled an “epidemic” of ACL injuries.
Female athletes face a risk of sustaining an ACL injury during training or competition that is two to six times higher than that of male athletes, a statistic that remains unchanged despite the swift professionalisation of women’s football in recent years.
The absence of numerous prominent women footballers like Sam Kerr, Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema, Marie-Antoinette Katoto, Leah Williamson, Janine Beckie, Delphine Cascarino, and numerous other internationals from major tournaments over the past two years due to ACL injuries, has not only resulted in significant loss of income for them but has also amplified the demand for action to address this issue.
The global players’ union, FIFPro has finally taken notice of this call to action.
Last week, the union unveiled an innovative program named “Project ACL,” which seeks to tackle the various interconnected factors contributing to the heightened risk of ACL tears among women footballers.
Over the course of three years, the study will examine current research on ACL injuries in female athletes, evaluate the resources and support systems offered by Women’s Super League (WSL) clubs in England, and introduce a proprietary digital tool to monitor WSL players’ playing workload, travel commitments, and high-intensity match participation in real-time. This approach aims to generate more detailed and nuanced data on the situations in which female footballers face the highest risk of injury.
FIFPRO, the Professional Footballers’ Association, Nike, and Leeds Beckett University have collaborated on a three-year project centred on England’s 12-team Women’s Super League (WSL).
While research on ACL injuries in women’s sports is expanding, what sets FIFPro’s program apart is its integration of academic studies, which have predominantly concentrated on internal biological and physiological factors in amateur athletes, with a comprehensive evaluation of the external environments in which players compete, train, recover, and travel in.
Similar to all sports, resources vary among clubs, with women’s teams affiliated with larger, wealthier men’s clubs likely enjoying access to superior resources such as qualified personnel, gym facilities, recovery centres and programs, nutritional support, and private or business-class travel compared to less supported teams.
Yet, the available research on these environmental factors is insufficient to ascertain their significance and identify which ones clubs, coaches, and staff can modify effectively to prevent future injuries.
FIFPro’s Head of Strategy and Research for Women’s Football, Dr. Alex Culvin explained in detail behind this innovative project said via press release:
“This research has never been done before,” she said.
“It’s a stakeholder-collaborative project, which also hasn’t been done before: we have four big stakeholders [FIFPro, England’s player’s union, Leeds-Beckett University, and Nike] coming together to better understand ACL injuries, as well as the environments and conditions in which they occur.
“This project is a response to the players rightly calling for more research: it’s around centralising the needs of players and their voice, but also moving away from the singular or binary understandings of ACL injuries.
“Pointing simply to ‘workload’ or ‘female physiology’, one of the primary objectives of this project is to understand the holistic risk factors, the environmental risk factors, and that fundamentally comes down to the conditions in which players play.”
Enhanced and thorough research into ACL injuries not only provides players and coaches with increased confidence and assurance in their careers but also aligns with commercial interests. The burgeoning economy of women’s football relies heavily on the performances of players who are among the most vulnerable due to their involvement in multiple concurrent competitions and escalating demands on their physical and mental well-being.
Quantitative data obtained from club assessments will be supplemented with qualitative insights gathered through anonymous interviews with players, including both those who have experienced ACL injuries and those who haven’t. These interviews aim to delve into their everyday work settings, how they feel about the support they receive, match frequency, training intensity, and the interconnection of these factors in assessing injury risk.
The leaders of Project ACL define ‘success’ of this three-year study comes in many forms.
First, their goal is to shift the discourse surrounding ACL injuries to ensure that a player’s various environmental factors are consistently taken into account, thus fostering widespread awareness and anticipation that these factors can and will be addressed discreetly.
Secondly, it is setting a precedent for cooperative research among diverse football stakeholders to pursue collective solutions that enhance the sport. This involves clubs and unions, typically in conflict against each other, collaborating towards a shared objective.
Lastly, and perhaps most crucially, FIFPro aims for this project to underscore the significance of placing players at the forefront of structural reforms and decisions, recognising that these changes ultimately have the most significant impact on them.
As McNamara, Tobin, and Fenton watched the Grand Final from the sidelines, the ambitious research initiative suggests that future players may not face the same elevated risk of injury in just a few years’ time.
FIFPRO and its project partners intend to share their discoveries with all football stakeholders worldwide, including FIFA and regional confederations, to advance player welfare globally.
