Women's football's ACL injury epidemic has not gone away, what can the game do?
As confirmation arrived that yet another high-profile women’s football star had fallen victim to an anterior cruciate ligament injury, the initial sensation was one of whiplash.
Following a season that felt defined by a perennial news cycle of high-profile women’s footballers falling victim to ACL injuries (at one point, a quarter of last year’s Ballon d’Or candidate were sidelined due to ACL injuries while the summer’s Women’s World Cup was blighted by a slew of high-profile names unable to attend), the 2023/24 season promised to be one in which lessons were learned.
Instead, women’s football remains stalled at a Rubicon. Manchester City confirmed on Saturday that Dutch midfielder Jill Roord is the latest elite-level women’s footballer to suffer an ACL injury. The news arrived less than 24 hours after Eintracht Frankfurt Frauen confirmed that their captain Tanja Pawollek had torn her ACL during their Champions League encounter against Barcelona. Altogether since the start of the calendar year, 11 high-profile ACL injuries have been reported, including Chelsea and Australian striker Sam Kerr.
What exactly the culprit is behind the flare up in injuries has been heavily dissected over the course of the last year. A FIFPro report released last year claimed that increased workloads and congested fixture schedules had resulted in notable increases in ACL, knee and ankle injuries for elite women's footballers.
Arsenal and England defender Leah Williamson, who sustained the injury last season, issued a stark warning to football’s governing bodies, cautioning: “The way you’re taking women’s football right now, you won’t be able to increase the ticket prices or get bigger crowds in the stadiums because you won’t have players to
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