Medical services at the FIFA world cup Qatar 2022

Abstract

Objective: The Football World Cup is among the biggest sporting events in the world, but data to inform the requirements of medical care for such tournaments are limited. This study describes the athlete and team medical services at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 .

Methods: Three different medical service entities were identified through a needs analysis based on expert advice, team physician interviews and questionnaires prior to the event: 'Team Services' to provide any workforce or equipment needs of the teams, a 'Polyclinic' to manage any acute medical demands, and a 'recovery centre' to improve game readiness throughout the tournament. All services had been set up prior to the tournament and thoroughly tested.

Results: Of a total of 832 athletes, ~1300 team delegation and ~130 match officials, 167 individuals including 129 (77%) athletes and 38 (23%) non-athletes were assessed in the polyclinic. For the 129 athletes (median 4 players per team), medical imaging was the most requested service, which peaked during the group phase of the tournament. Most requests were received during normal working hours despite many games finishing late at night. 30 of the 32 participating teams solicited medical services for their players at least once. Three teams made use of the recovery facilities, and 17 teams requested additional medical equipment or clinical assistance.

Conclusion: Central imaging services was the most used medical resource at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, and over half of teams required additional medical equipment or personnel. These data may inform planning of medical services for similar events in the future.

Keywords: Football; Soccer; Sports medicine.

Figure 1

Number of encounters per country (players+officials). Each horizontal bar represents one country, the different grey scaling illustrates the different patient categories.

Figure 2

Timeline of service provision in the polyclinic. The horizontal axis illustrates the dates during the tournament, the vertical axis the number of patients attending each day. The different shading of the vertical bars illustrates the patient categories. The different phases of the competition and the separate VIP exhibition tournament are indicated.

Figure 3

Example (screenshot) of a real time report provided to key stakeholders to keep track of medical matters during the tournament (teams have been anonymised).