By Lori Ewing
April 22 (Reuters) - The National Women's Soccer League and its players' union have joined Project ACL, a global initiative aimed at reducing the number of anterior cruciate ligament injuries in professional women's football.
The collaboration brings the U.S.-based NWSL into a programme that was launched in England's Women's Super League two years ago in response to a call for more research into ACL tears, with women more than twice as likely to suffer the debilitating injury than men.
Project ACL seeks to better understand the multiple factors behind ACL injuries, with researchers saying there is limited evidence on how to reduce such injuries at the professional level, and women make up as little as 8% of sports science research.
The NWSL and NWSLPA will work alongside existing partners Nike, Leeds Beckett University and global players union FIFPRO to build evidence-based practices to help the women's game, studying not just the physical causes but training conditions, scheduling demands and recovery environments.
Since its launch, Project ACL researchers have surveyed staff across all 12 WSL clubs and conducted interviews with more than 30 players, with support from England's Professional Footballers' Association.
The project is also tracking players' workload, travel and critical zone appearances (games with less than five days of recovery time) via the FIFPRO Player Workload Monitoring tool to establish links between scheduling and injury risk.
The formal launch of the NWSL partnership was held on Wednesday at Nike's headquarters in New York.
"We believe that player-centricity and collaboration with key stakeholders are central to establishing meaningful change in the soccer ecosystem and that players, competition organizers and stakeholders around the world will benefit from Project ACL's outputs and outcomes," said Dr. Alex Culvin, FIFPRO's director of women's football.
The NWSL's vice-president of sporting, Sarah Gregorius, said player health was central to the league's future.
"This is an area where we intend to lead," she said. "By continuing to invest in this work, we can help build environments where our players are better supported and able to perform at their best."
More than 25 players missed the FIFA Women's World Cup due to ACL injuries.
Gotham FC defender Kayla Duran is the most recent NWSL player to suffer the season-ending knee injury, in a game against Kansas City Current on April 4.
(Reporting by Lori Ewing, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
