Thirty Percent of Female Footballers Terminate Their Careers Due to Injury: A Retrospective Study Among Polish Former Players.

CONTEXT

Female football is becoming an increasingly popular women's team sports discipline around the world. The Women's Football Committee in the Polish Football Association has developed a long-term strategic plan to popularize the discipline across the country and enhance girls' participation. On one hand, it is postulated to increase the number of female footballers, and on the other hand, it is crucial to decrease the number of girls quitting football prematurely.

OBJECTIVE

To find the reasons for sports career termination among female football players.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional with retrospective information about reasons of career termination.

SETTING

Online questionnaire was filled out by online access.

PARTICIPANTS

Ninety-three former female footballers.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Factors leading to career termination.

METHODS

Participants completed the online questionnaire. The analysis was performed referring to 2 groups: "injury group"-in which the injury was the main reason for quitting football, and "other group"-in which the female player stopped playing football due to all other factors.

RESULTS

Thirty percent of former Polish female football players terminated their career due to a long-term treatment for an injury. Over 27% (27.7%) females had ended their careers because they were not able to reconcile sports with work/studying. Over 10% (10.8%) of former football players reported that becoming a wife and/or mother was the reason for career termination. Losing motivation and interest in the sport was reported by 9.2% (n = 6) of present study participants who decided to terminate the career due to noninjury reasons.

CONCLUSIONS

The results clearly show that more effort is needed to support female football players, especially after an injury, so that they do not quit the sport voluntarily.