You are here

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

XML
Short reports
FIFA Women's World Cup 2011: Pre-Competition Medical Assessment of female referees and assistant referees
  1. Dagmar I Keller1,2,
  2. Mario Bizzini3,
  3. Nina Feddermann4,
  4. Astrid Junge3,
  5. Jiri Dvorak3,5
  1. 1Cardiology Department, University Hospital Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
  2. 2Spinal cord injury center, University Hospital Balgrist, Zürich, Switzerland
  3. 3FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC) and Schulthess Clinic, Zürich, Switzerland
  4. 4Neurology Department, University Hospital Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
  5. 5Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and Schulthess Clinic, Zürich, Switzerland
  1. Correspondence to Dr Dagmar I Keller, Cardiology Department, University Hospital Zuerich, Raemistrasse 100, 8091 Zürich, Switzerland; dagmar.keller{at}usz.ch

Abstract

Background Precompetition screening was implemented for male referees during the 2010 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Word Cup. In contrast, female football referees have been neglected in this respect although they experience similar physical work loads compared to male referees.

Methods The standardised football-specific Pre-Competition Medical Assessment (PCMA) was performed in 51 referees and assistant referees selected for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Results Family history for sudden cardiac death (SCD) was positive in four referees (7.8%), but cardiac examinations did not reveal any pathological findings. Training-unrelated ECG changes were identified in three referees (5.9%), all without correlates in echocardiography or clinical examination. Most common echocardiography findings (66.6%, n=34) were asymptomatic tricuspid and mitral regurgitations.

Conclusions During the present screening, no elite female referee was identified being at risk for SCD, and no referee had to be excluded from participating in the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.

  • Cardiology
  • Cardiovascular
  • Women in sport
  • Cardiology prevention

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2012-091436

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text