News came this week that FIFA will fund research to to look into the menstrual cycle’s affect on ACL injuries.
This comes a year after University College London, University of Bath and St Mary’s University published research on the injury in women’s football. That research suggested stars a more likely to sustain the injury at particular points in their cycle.
And while all of this new research is hugely welcomed in trying to find a way to lower the huge number of ACLs in the sport, why has it taken so long to put into motion?
ACL injuries: Who has sustained the injury?
If this was a prevalent issue in men’s football I believe that it would have been looked into years ago.
Yet hundreds of women’s footballers have sustained the injury over a number of seasons and research has been scarce.
It’s another frustrating element of the women’s game that they have to fight tooth and nail to get answers.
The hope is now this will be have a domino affect into finding out why the issue is so high in women’s football.
Stars like Chelsea’s Sam Kerr, Manchester City’s Vivianne Miedema and Mary Fowler, Arsenal’s Beth Mead and Leah Williamson have all sustained the issue over the last few seasons.
An ACL injury takes a while to recover from, which is another element to the problem.
Players are not only sustaining them at a high rate but it then takes them months, if not years, to return to the pitch.
Kerr, for example, sustained her ACL injury in January 2024 and has not played since.
Of course it will most likely going to take more than a few research studies. But these may unlock answers which can further research for the future with the eventual result of preventing as many ACL injuries as possible.
Players, fans and the sport as a whole have had countless examples of stars missing key events which hits the competition to those major tournaments.
Players have also had significant portions of their finite careers taken from them because of the injury.
It has to stop and it’s such a shame it has taken so long to kickstart the path to preventing them.
