Arsenal and England star Leah Williamson has hit out at the “unsustainable schedule” that cost her an ACL injury and could lead to “NFL” squads.
The Lionesses’ Euro 2022-winning captain damaged knee ligaments back in April 2023.
She has taken in a long road to recovery since then – missing the 2023 World Cup in the process – and has warned that the women’s game will struggle to earn the growth it craves unless something is done about the demands placed on overworked stars.
Williamson has told The Telegraph: “Sorry, the tone of the room just changed, but it really does my head in.
“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.
“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.”
Williamson was one of 37 players to be nursing an ACL injury at the time of the 2023 World Cup, while Chelsea forward Sam Kerr is among those to have suffered the same problem since.
Act Fast
Williamson added on the need for authorities to act now: “I don’t want football to get to a point in 10 years’ time where actually it’s a squad of 40 players and it’s bit like NFL [which allows unlimited substitutions].
“Or you have a first-half team and a second-half team, because we’re having to rotate because no player can sustain that all year round.
“Everything is done the wrong way round, when we do the schedule.
“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.
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“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.”