Response to ACL issue among women 'disparate and slow' - report

Sport's response to the prevalence of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries among women has been "disparate and slow", a select committee report has concluded.

A number of top female footballers, including the Republic of Ireland's Jamie Finn, her international teammate Savannah McCarthy and England captain Leah Williamson have suffered ACL injuries.

The Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) found "systemic gender inequality" in how sports and exercise research is conducted and called on the Government to convene a task force to develop a long-term strategy to tackle sportswomen's health and physiology-related issues.

"Scrutiny of the ongoing anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injury issue in women's football has shown that there is systemic gender inequality in sports and exercise research, which is still overwhelmingly conducted by men, looking at issues affecting men," the report summary stated.

"The sports science sector's response to the ACL issue has been disparate and slow. We have no doubt that a health issue of similar magnitude affecting elite male footballers would have received a faster, more thorough, and better co-ordinated response."

European football's governing body UEFA has set up a women's health expert panel which is looking at ACL injuries, with the long-term goal being to produce a consensus on prevention and management by the summer, plus an updated ACL injury prevention programme.

A paper published last year in the British Editorial Society of Bone and Joint Surgery found females were up to eight times more likely to suffer an ACL injury than males. Hormonal factors were cited in the paper as a modifier in the increased risk of injury but the paper's authors accepted data on this topic remained