The Football Association has become the first national governing body to mandate training on female health, with Women’s Super League and Championship clubs benefitting from a new league-wide support plan.

Working in partnership with The Well HQ, specialists in delivering female health strategies across sport, clubs in the women’s professional game will receive new courses and best practice guidelines on pregnancy, the menstrual cycle and pelvic health.

The changes come after the leagues and the Well HQ commissioned their State of Play Project report, surveying 101 players and 19 support staff across the professional game. 75 interviews later, The Well HQ released its recommendations in 2022 and in October the following year launched FootballHER: Continuing Professional Development For All, an online course for staff across WSL and Championship clubs. Modules cover areas including the menstrual cycle, kit, fertility, pre and post-natal health, pelvic health, injury risk and nutrition. Guidance is tailored for the varying club environments and levels of resource found across the two leagues.

Clubs must now also nominate an existing member of support staff as their female athlete health lead to receive additional support from Well HQ and spearhead the support of female athletes at their clubs.

Best practice guidelines on pregnancy post-natal care, menstrual cycle health and pelvic health will be delivered throughout 2024, including to England Women.

Previously, women’s health support across the two leagues has varied. While Chelsea’s Melanie Leupolz benefitted from a pelvic floor coach throughout her 2022 pregnancy, Emma Mukandi, then of Reading, criticised the lack of support for new mothers in the game and claimed that she had been left to breast pump in a cupboard after giving birth to daughter Innes in November 2021. At that time Reading manager Kelly Chambers said the club had supported Mukandi in “the best way we could” with a maternity package for eight and a half months but admitted that “The Women’s game is in its infancy when it comes to handling maternity”.

Emma Ross, chief scientific officer and one of the founders at The Well HQ, said of the new plan: “I can’t stress enough how pioneering this project is. This is saying: ‘This is a non-negotiable. If we’re going to support women in sport really well, this is what we have to do.’ If we project into the future, we’re just going to hopefully have a sport where it’s totally expected that women’s health is supported on a par with all the other elements of health and wellbeing.”

With precious little research in health and fitness devoted specifically to women’s bodies, a knowledge gap begins before puberty and persists through pregnancy, midlife and the menopause. The Well HQ’s own data also found that 80 per cent of players felt that they did not know enough about the menstrual cycle.

Ross, who led the sports scientists for Team GB during the Rio and Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, added: “That data we got was mirrored in a big project done by the Government [in 2019] across all women across the UK,” Ross adds. “Its conclusion was that women, at every life stage, are woefully uneducated about their bodies.

“Even two or three years ago when we surveyed sports and exercise journals and looked at the top five journals, we found that only six per cent of the research was being done exclusively on women. When you have people working in the elite game who want an evidence base from which to work to support players, they have very little evidence. But we know enough about women’s bodies to do better now and also use what we do know to inform what we do in the future.

“We are encouraging them [clubs] all to collaborate on this, to talk about the work they’re doing. Ultimately, all of these clubs are kind of in competition with one another – and I think the competitive advantage they will gain is how well they do it and how far they push it. That will then create some exciting things happening in this sport which will set clubs apart in terms of their vision for this work.

“Football is going to be an amazing vehicle to push the agenda forward. The growth of the game and the need to keep players emotionally and physically healthy is demanding that we do this now. The FA have really stepped up and that will really act as flagship for other sports.”

Andy Hudson, performance support manager for the women’s professional game, said that improved support for female footballers had become “increasingly urgent” due to “the increasing level of seasonal demand being placed upon players”.

He continued: “Club staff were excited about the opportunity that’s being made available to them. There is information out there that relates to female athlete health but very often not practical advice.

“The FA and the league have done some of the heavy-lifting in this, so we’ve reduced the (financial) burden on the clubs by resourcing this, investing in it and making sure there is the associated level of practical support and expertise. The broad intention for this is to allow a rising tide to raise all ships. Things that were considered innovative will, down the line, be considered normal.”

The Well HQ has also collaborated with the Football Association on a separate research project on female health in the grassroots game, the findings of which will be made public in the coming months. In 2020, The Well HQ introduced internal workshops to support WSL and Championship players.

(Top photo: Naomi Baker/Getty Images)