Speaking on this week’s Official A-Leagues Podcast, former Matildas and A-League star Amy Chapman reflected on Holly McNamara’s ACL injury and raised her concern about a trend in female football that she feels has not been adequately addressed.
In the past 20 years that I’ve been involved in football, the number of female athletes doing their ACL is absolutely off the charts.
After every weekend I am just dreading who we’re going to hear we’ve lost for 12 months to an ACL injury.
I’m probably a perfect picture example of that; I’ve had three ACL’s myself and two of those were when I was a teenager; so watching someone like Holly McNamara – just reaching peak form, peak fitness, she’s into the Matildas – to then have it all come crumbling down in what wasn’t even a tackle, it is so heart-wrenching to watch.
Peel back the layers of how many ACL’s there are. Look at Sam Kerr, who has had an ACL; Lydia Williams; Elise Kellond-Knight has had two. I think from the US national team, when they won the World Cup, 10 of their starting XI had done their ACL’s – that is unbelievable.
The list goes on: Kim Carroll, Kyah Simon, Sarah Walsh, Katie Gill, Collette McCallum, Lauren Colthorpe, Leena Khamis, Mindy Barbieri , Joey Burgess , Thea Slatyer, Ellie Brush, Emma Checker, Kayla Morrison, Casey Dumont, Nat Tathem. That’s 12 months out of the game, minimum.
We’ve got the likes of Chloe Logarzo out at the moment, Sarah Walsh had three, Caitlin Munoz had five. Some of the best players in the women’s game have actually lost years and years in the peak of their career.
It’s a different lifestyle in the women’s game. A lot of them are part-time, but are expected to be playing like full-time professionals.
I remember when I did my last ACL when I was 27 I was a contracted Matilda. At that time it was a six-month contract – that’s a 12-month injury. In one tackle I lost every bit of income… not only my club, Matildas, but I wasn’t able to perform my other job.
You can imagine the job security, there was nothing.
The game has evolved since then; that was four or five years ago now, but you can see it’s a lot to commit with a really high risk. Particularly with some of these really long injuries.
There’s a lot of factors: It’s genetics, females are already eight times more likely to suffer this injury. it’s to do with the Q-angle from your hips to your knees, they naturally load their knees a lot more than the men.
There is some menstrual factors there, and the US are doing some great things in research that space, but more needs to be done, more data needs to be taken, because you don’t want to be losing players like McNamara who should be signing for some of these top English teams in the next one to two years. You hope she’s still going to be there or thereabouts in 12 months time.
Depending on the timing of when you do your injury, a lot of these players, particularly in the A-League Womens, are on short-term contracts. But this is a 12-month injury – stability, your future, it all becomes another layer of stress.
Now, thankfully, there is injury insurance that at least provides some income for a good 18 months, for both football and non football related wages.
But the rehabilitation and isolation takes its toll off the park. Some clubs are excellent at trying to keep you in the loop, but there is no actual professional team you’re coming to train with every single day for probably 80% of that. You’re sort of looked after for a while, then you’re out on your own.
If you’re part of the Matildas setup, which is the top 3-5%, maybe you’ll be in a bit of luck and have a good amount of support. But that’s certainly an area we need to do so much more work on.
Featured image: Rachel Bach @bythewhiteline
