With the 32-team Women’s World Cup arriving in Brazil in 2027, FIFA is distributing 30 peer-reviewed health modules across its 211-member network — inserting itself as the field’s authoritative source on female athlete science at a moment when the underlying research base has been built almost entirely on male subjects.
FIFA has launched the FIFA Female Health and Performance Project, a new initiative to advance research and knowledge for female athletes. An analysis of 5,261 articles published in sports and exercise science journals between 2014 and 2020 has found that only 34 percent of study participants were female, and just 6 percent of research exclusively focused on women. In practical terms, this means that female footballers mostly rely on training and recovery methods that were developed on men and did not reflect their physiological features. The new project was initiated to help fill this gap and meet the specific health and performance requirements of female athletes.
All 211 FIFA Member Associations as well as sports professionals and the general public now have access to specialized, peer-reviewed information via 30 online modules that cover the following topics: female physiology, nutrition, reproductive years, menstrual health tracking, pregnancy and postpartum, fertility, menopause, pelvic health, recovery, sleep, strength and conditioning, screening and profiling, injury and injury prevention. The modules, which examin these topics through the lens of the female athlete, are available in four separate levels, from “Introduction” to “Integrated.”
“We need to normalize conversations around female health and embrace this, using it to our advantage instead of ignoring it or being fearful of discussing it,” said Sarai Bareman, FIFA’s Chief Women’s Football Officer. “It is not a weakness; it is a strength,” added Bareman.
The 10th edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the first to feature 32 teams, is set to take place in Brazil next year, making it ever more urgent to close this knowledge gap, explained FIFA.
To know more: FIFA Female Health and Performance Project
