Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. It has been estimated that at least 120-150 million people play soccer worldwide with over 15-17 million participants in Canada and the United States.
Research on concussions in soccer has shown that soccer players have concussion rates similar to football and ice hockey.
Research at McGill University has shown that over one year, around 2/3 of university soccer players will have symptoms of a concussion after being hit in the head playing soccer. Soccer is played 12 months of the year. In some areas, where it is too cold to play outside all year, they play indoor soccer during the cold months.
The only reason that football has more total concussions in the USA is because there are more football players. The risk or rate of concussions is almost identical for each sport. However, the number of soccer players has been increasing in the US over the past decade, while the number of football players has been decreasing. If this trend continues, eventually there will be more soccer than football players in the US. If and when more people play soccer in the US, then there will be more concussions due to soccer than football.
It is not only researchers that have known that concussions in soccer are a real problem. Even the US government has realized there is a problem. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), a government organization, collects data from selected hospital Emergency Departments from across the entire U.S. in an effort to estimate the total number of injuries occurring during specific activities (ex. Soccer) and/or injuries occurring with specific products. The CPSC uses the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) as a monitoring device. NEISS figures are based on a sample of participating U.S. hospital Emergency Departments rather than a census of all U.S. hospital Emergency Departments.
There are some soccer leagues that have required some form of head protection. The ForceField FFTM Headband is the answer for both young children and adults.
How do concussions occur? When we examine this question, the best studies show that concussions occur from:
An opponent’s head 28%
Ball 24%
Elbow 14%
Ground 10%
Knee 3%
Foot 3%
Concrete sidelines 3%
Goalposts 3%
Combination of objects 3%
The ForceField FFTM Protective Headgear will significantly reduce the severity of the impact forces.
