Chapman News | Overworking athletes means injuring athletes
It’s not a glorified job — in fact, there are many difficult aspects of being an athlete, regardless of professional level. One major issue is injuries, which is becoming more exposed, particularly in soccer.
FIFA recently introduced a new 32-team Club World Cup. The tournament will be played this upcoming summer and, due to this addition, players at top-level clubs could play up to a total of 60 to 70 games compared to the average 40 to 50 games.
Dane Jefferson, the president of San Diego State’s Men’s club soccer team, is a fan of soccer himself. Not only do these injuries affect the players, but also the fans who are bringing in the income for big corporations.
“As an American soccer fan, I want to go to Europe. I want to watch all those games myself. And if I’m booking a plane ticket, if I’m watching one of these major FIFA tournaments, I want to be able to go see my favorite players play,” Jefferson said.
Dr. Pablo Costa, a kinesiology professor at California State University, Fullerton, says it is important to identify the most common injuries in respective sports, and adjusting training to prevent injuries is the next best step for athletes, and even everyday practitioners.
“There’s many different ways (for prevention) — you can assess injury risk, look at muscle balance, or imbalance, try to minimize the imbalance, both from side-to-side, from agonist and antagonist muscles,” Costa said.
Even with those injury prevention techniques, the risk is still present. Manchester City midfielder Rodri, who recently won the Ballon d’Or award which recognizes the best player in the world for the past season, is leading a possible player strike against FIFA. A week after speaking out about the strike, he suffered an injury from knee ligament damage during the team’s match against Arsenal.
Jefferson knows the importance of taking care of his health while playing on San Diego State’s Men’s club soccer team. And he places the blame for the current injury epidemic on big corporations like FIFA.
“I think FIFA as a whole is reaching a point where its entertainment and its monetary value has grown so much that, especially with all these streaming platforms, people want to put out as many games as possible without keeping in mind how taxing it is on the individuals themselves.” Jefferson said.
