England star Beth Mead echoes Emma Hayes' ACL worries ahead of FIFA partnership
England and Arsenal striker Beth Mead has echoed Chelsea manager Emma Hayes’ concerns surrounding the increased percentage of anterior cruciate ligament injuries (ACL) sustained around international breaks - as this was precisely when the star suffered her injury.
The Blues boss, who will become the USWNT manager after this season, called on FIFA and UEFA to look at injury analysis research which shows that “the vast majority [of ACL injuries] come within 10 days of changes from international breaks to club, or from club competition to international breaks.”
"It's not as simple as saying that different teams have a different training load or travelling schedule, or recoveries etc. We need to really reflect on what we do,” Hayes added. “If you want to do a piece of research, go back through all those major injuries and how quickly they coincided with big changes, combined with menstrual stuff, training, pitches etc. That's just my opinion. There's a lot of work still to do."
And Mead, who is set to work alongside FIFA to share knowledge on ACL injuries following her long road to recovery, believes Hayes’ point should not go unheeded as women’s football continues to be roiled by what many have called an ‘epidemic’.
"It's funny how much knowledge you actually get throughout [ACL injury recovery],” Mead said as part of an ongoing documentary charting her road to recovery alongside team-mate and partner Vivianne Miedema. “I saw [ Chelsea manager] Emma Hayes' interview and I thought it was interesting what she said about the 10 days between swapping from club and country.
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"Mine was actually in that period. I'd just come back from England and transferred to club that weekend. I do believe the stress, mental components and the scheduling are big, big factors that affect this injury."
Research shows female athletes are up to six times more likely to have a non-contact ACL injury than male counterparts, but the increasingly congested fixture schedule has become a point of contention in women’s football as ACL injuries continue to plague the game. England midfielder Georgia Stanway warning of potential ‘burnout’ earlier this week while England boss Sarina Wiegman urged football’s governing bodies to reconsider the physical demands placed on the game’s elite players.
Mead was one of a raft of high-profile footballers to suffer the injury. Miedema cruelly ruptured her ACL one month after Mead in an Arsenal team plagued by the injury, while Chelsea strikers Sam Kerr and Mia Fishel, along with Manchester City midfielder Jill Roord, are the latest stars to find themselves on the list since the turn of the year.
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Beth Mead will work with FIFA on the ongoing ACL epidemic ((Photo by Alex Burstow/Arsenal FC via Getty Images))The slew of injuries has led to increased conversations and research into the ongoing issue. Mead and Miedema will now work alongside FIFA to help tackle the issue. “There's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that's great," Mead said. "There were a few ACL injuries in the World Cup and there's been quite a few since this season," she added. "We brought our documentary out to bring it to light a little bit better. Off the back of that, we've linked up with a few more [people].
"Hopefully we can get more data put out there and more specific information rather than just taking a survey that people do online in 10 or 15 minutes. We can be a bit more specific and nail down on it." Mead believes that finding a solution is a “million dollar question” and will require a huge cash investment to solve.
"Someone has got to be very rich to figure out how to stop these injuries," she said. "There's no definitive answer on how to stop it and I think that's the frustrating part. We do feel the responsibility. There's a lot of us that have the power in a good way to try to help and push on with the research.”
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