ACL Carnage in the Women’s Game
Women’s football is the fastest growing sport in the UK. The Lionesses are the most successful team in the nation's history. But they are being limited by their own genetics. The ACL Crisis is not slowing down, and now the players are demanding more.
The tunnel at Wembley is electric, players beam as they pass the line of awaiting media, their joyous buzz can be heard before they’re seen. England have thrashed China 8-0, Georgia Stanway has become just the third Lioness to score a hat-trick at Wembley Stadium. The much-celebrated squad appear euphoric, whilst clearly exhausted, but there's a sense of a darker undertone. Several players are missing from the squad with injuries, and just days before, the squad’s healthy players witnessed 19-year-old Michelle Agyemang stretchered off the field with the injury that strikes fear in any women’s footballer… ACL.
England and China line up for the national anthems at Wembley Stadium before England’s 8-0 victory on Nov 29.
Beth Mead is the first to approach, and speaks of her teammates that would miss out on celebrations. “We have a group that girls who aren’t here message, whether you’re in or out of the squad. It’s nice to stay in contact, stay connected, and I’m sure them girls would’ve enjoyed the performance tonight.”
She moves on to discuss from her experience, how player wellbeing and scheduling should be more deeply considered. ‘It’s trying to put something in place that can help us navigate through these different times. It’s very different in women’s football now, we’re not used to it.’
“We’re trying to push the best performances, whether it’s the way we’re looking after players mentally, physically or scheduling, obviously that’s always a big one.”
Beth Mead speaking to media post England vs China.
The numbers are scary.
During 2022 167 players tore their ACL, a further 177 in 2023 and a whopping 197 in 2024. As shown in this graphic below.
A bar chart showing data collected of ACL injuries to women’s footballers between 2022 and 2024. (Data sourced from @aclwfc on X)
With 2025 almost over, fans fear the release of this year's numbers. In October alone, 17 players were announced to have torn their ACL’s.
Lucy Bronze, a co-founder of Project ACL - a three year project researching the cause of ACL injuries in women’s football set to conclude in 2027, also spoke of the importance of more research. “The expertise needs to be a lot higher.” She further explained that, “We need something more. I think we are pushing in the right direction to figure out the differences between male and female bodies and what we can do.”
“We want the best players on the pitch as much as possible, so it’s only going to help the game.
”
Former Lionesses physiotherapist Alicia Tang backed this, explaining, “Unfortunately, it relies a lot on looking at retrospective data, which you would hope that people have collected well.” Also adding that the conditions of the games are far more likely to cause ACL injuries than gender. “There’s more intrinsic values other than your gender that put you at risk of an injury. Such as previous injury history, playing surfaces, style of play, intensity of fixtures, load management, genetic health, strength, movement control that are not variable based on whether you’re an x or y chromosome.”
So it could be argued that while science does suggest women’s bodies are more susceptible to ACL injuries, it could in fact be the pitches and constantly packed schedules that are to blame for this epidemic of torn knee ligaments.
Click here for my full interview with Alicia Tang -
And click here to hear my full interviews with Beth Mead and Lucy Bronze -
You can also head to TikTok @catherine.parsonsx where I explored Chloe Kelly’s post ACL injury career. Or head to X via this link https://x.com/cparsonssj/status/2000157965144543463 for a detailed list of Lionesses who have torn their ACL over the last 10 years.
Women’s Footballers to have torn their ACL in the last 10 years.