The UEFA Women’s Elite Club Injury Study about risk factors for hamstring injuries in women’s football has received the Best Paper Award for 2022-23 from the prestigious sports medicine journal Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy (KSSTA).
UEFA has long been at the vanguard in the development of surveys focusing on the safety of players in professional football.
In 2001, UEFA initiated a research project for male elite level teams in Europe. The Elite Club Injury Study (ECIS) has continued every season for 24 years and data has been collected for 19000 injuries in around 50 top teams during three million hours of exposure to training and matches.
In 2017, UEFA started the Women’s Elite Club Injury Study (WECIS) which has continued for seven years. This is the first and only continuous and on-going survey in women’s elite football and follows the same design as the male study (ECIS).
Muscle injuries, and especially injuries to the rear of the thigh (hamstring injuries), are the most common injury at both men’s and women’s elite level. Hamstring injuries, often referred to as ‘sprinter’s injuries’, occur during high intensity actions and they reflect the high intensity and speed of actions at modern elite level football.
The purpose of the study was to describe the perceived importance of suggested hamstring injury risk factors according to chief medical officers (CMOs) of European women’s professional football clubs.
Most risk factors were extrinsic in nature, hence associated with the coaching staff, the team or the club organisation, rather than with the players themselves. The risks factors with the highest average importance were found to be lack of communication between medical staff and coaching staff and load on players.
“UEFA has for many years lead the development of surveys aimed at reducing injuries and increasing player safety in professional football,” Jan Ekstrand, who led the team of scientists that conducted the award-winning study, said.
“We, as authors of this paper feel grateful and honoured by this award. The honour goes also to UEFA who has initiated, funded and supported the study. This study represents a recognition to UEFA and their pioneering work done to protect the health of football players.”
The full publication can be found here.