Leah Williamson calls for 'solution' to schedule after Sam Kerr injury - ‘Driving ourselves into the ground’

Leah Williamson has called for a "solution" to be found to the increased schedule in women's football in light of Sam Kerr becoming the latest in a series of players to suffer an ACL knee injury.

Kerr picked up the injury in Chelsea’s warm weather training camp in Morocco earlier this month, and England captain Williamson has highlighted how the increasingly hectic calendar is taking its toll on the players.

Williamson was one of 37 players to miss last summer's Women's World Cup because of ACL injuries.

“We’re not bred for this. Nowadays we get to October and girls are saying, ‘I’m tired’ because you’re carrying so much from the previous season,” Williamson told The Telegraph.

“Ultimately, I think the way you’re taking women’s football right now, you won’t be able to increase the ticket prices or get bigger crowds in the stadiums because you won’t have players to watch.

“We are driving ourselves into the ground with it, so some sort of solution needs to be found soon, in terms of the schedule, otherwise it’s not sustainable.”

Kerr will begin her rehabilitation programme after being assessed by a specialist, while Williamson, who is also recovering from the same injury, is edging closer to a return after missing last year's World Cup.

She has also seen Arsenal team-mates Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema suffer ACL injuries, and believes that a few adjustments to the current schedule could make a huge difference in reducing the numbers of these injuries.

“It rocks you. We’re devastated for her [Kerr]. There was silence on our bus, because we know what that means,” Arsenal’s vice-captain said.

“I don’t want football to get to a point in 10 years’ time where actually it’s a squad of 40 players and it’s bit like NFL [which allows unlimited substitutions], or you have a first-half team and a second-half team, because we’re having to rotate because no player can sustain that all year round.

“Everything is done the wrong way round, when we do the schedule. I’ve been in some of these meetings now and listened to the process and I still don’t understand how, when something is bad, why it’s not taken so seriously.

"It’s black and white – it’s not the only cause of all these injuries but it’s 100 per cent one of the main reasons.”

The 26-year-old suggested a potential workaround for football’s governing bodies to adapt, and cited how a longer break after last summer’s World Cup could have been beneficial.

“When they, FIFA UEFA, all the main people, do the scheduling, it should always be, ‘rest first’. [They should say], ‘as a professional athlete, to be able to perform all year round, you have to have four weeks off at the end of the season and six weeks pre-season, to be at no detriment to your health’.

"But at the end of the World Cup, some of the girls came back and had five days off. Five days, after getting to the final.

“Put in time when neither club nor country can touch a player, and just let them have a rest. But instead what we do is say, ‘You need to play this, this, this’ and then say, ‘I’ll give you two days off in between’. It’s impossible. It’s unsustainable.”

Williamson recently returned to Arsenal training as she continues her recovery.

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