Leah Williamson issues warning to Fifa over ‘unsustainable’ schedule after ACL injury

Leah Williamson has issued a warning to Fifa and Uefa that their crowded calendar is placing “unsustainable” demands on top women’s players.

Arsenal defender Williamson is closing in on a return from a serious knee injury having resumed training for the first time since tearing her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in April.

The injury forced the England captain to miss last summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

A number of high-profile footballers, including Arsenal teammates Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema, also suffered ACL tears last season.

With women’s football continuing to grow, there is every chance an already congested schedule becomes further populated with competitions expanding, and Williamson has told the sport’s controlling bodies that players are being forced to drive themselves “into the ground”.

The defender told The Telegraph: “We’re not bred for this. Nowadays we get to October and girls are saying, ‘I’m tired’ because you’re carrying so much from the previous season.

“Ultimately, I think 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 watch.

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“We are driving ourselves into the ground with it, so some sort of solution needs to be found soon, in terms of the schedule, otherwise it’s not sustainable.”

Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr is the latest top player to have suffered an ACL injury, with a number of bodies researching possible factors that make women more susceptible to the issue.

Williamson insists that ensuring that players get sufficient rest must be Fifa and Uefa’s top priority.

“Everything is done the wrong way round when we do the schedule,” she explained. “I’ve been in some of these meetings now and listened to the process and I still don’t understand how, when something is bad, why it’s not taken so seriously. It’s black and white – it’s not the only cause of all these injuries but it’s 100 per cent one of the main reasons.

“When they, Fifa, Uefa, all the main people, do the scheduling, it should always be, ‘Rest first’. [They should say], ‘as a professional athlete, to be able to perform all year round, you have to have four weeks off at the end of the season and six weeks pre-season, to be at no detriment to your health’.

“But at the end of the World Cup, some of the girls came back and had five days off. Five days, after getting to the final. Put in time when neither club nor country can touch a player, and just let them have a rest. But instead what we do is say, ‘You need to play this, this, this’ and then say, ‘I’ll give you two days off in between’. It’s impossible. It’s unsustainable.”