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. 2025 Aug 25.
doi: 10.1007/s40279-025-02250-1. Online ahead of print.

Back to the Future-Past Learnings for Prospective Performance, Medicine and Health Research Recommendations in WOMEN's Football

R Lovell  1   2 , K Okholm Kryger  3   4   5
Affiliations

Back to the Future-Past Learnings for Prospective Performance, Medicine and Health Research Recommendations in WOMEN's Football

R Lovell et al. Sports Med. .

Abstract

The rapid professionalisation of women's football has exposed significant gaps in biopsychosocial research that is essential to support player development, health, and career longevity. This current opinion examines historical deficiencies in research related to women's football, and presents the WOMEN framework (World-wide representation, Open science, Methodology excellence, Evidence-based practice, Nurturing talent) to address these gaps and provide future research directions. Emphasis is placed on the necessity of diversity in research populations, adoption of open science practices and methodological rigor to produce impactful, generalisable findings. The framework also signifies the importance of research to support nurturing talent from youth to elite levels, considering the unique factors affecting female players. By learning from the past, and using available guidelines and resources, the existing knowledge gaps can be bridged to support evidence-based advancements in women's football, promoting both performance enhancement and player wellbeing across all stages of an athlete's career.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing Interests:: The contents of this Current Opinion are presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation. In the interest of transparency, K.K. and R.L. have or have had freelance roles at FIFA. K.K. works for UEFA and has consulted for national football associations and football clubs. R.L. works at the University of Wollongong. This article is published as part of a supplement issue, for which K.K. served as a guest editor. K.K. played no part in the peer review or decision making of this article at the editorial level and contributed solely as an author. Author contributions: All authors wrote, reviewed, and approved the final manuscript. Funding: R.L. has received funding by the FIFA Women’s division to assist with the preparation of this manuscript. K.K. received no funding to assist with the preparation of this manuscript. This article is published as part of a supplement issue that was supported by FIFA. EDI statement: Our author team consists of one female and one male author: representing mid-career researchers working in elite and grassroot football research, with two nationalities and living in two different countries over two continents.

References

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