Medical issues in women’s football
- 1FIFA-Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC), Schulthess Klinik, Zurich, Switzerland
- 2University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
- 3University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Correspondence to: Paul McCrory University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; p.mccrory{at}unimelb.edu.au
In spite of the growing popularity of women’s football, there has been little research on the incidence and risk factors for injuries sustained by female football players. This supplement of the British Journal of Sports Medicine attempts to address that deficit and to stimulate the scientific discussion on gender-specific issues in football.
An understanding of the incidence, characteristics and circumstances of injury in elite female football players in top-level international tournaments is a prerequisite for design and implementation of injury prevention programmes. Although the rate of injury in top-level women’s tournaments is within the range reported for match injuries among elite male players, the diagnosis, mechanism and patterns of injury differ substantially, highlighting the need for gender-specific injury prevention counter-measures.
One key gender difference in the causation of injury are the distinctly different tackle mechanisms that lead to injury. Video analysis techniques …
