Chesterfield FC Community Trust has launched a pioneering scheme, testing all women footballers involved with the organisation for Cardiovascular Disease.
With the help of funding from Westfield Health, APLUS Medical Services & Training and a donation from former England player Tony Currie, cardiograms are being provided for players within the girls’ pathway and the Education Football Programme. This will ultimately result in 68 female players being screened.
Currently, all male football players at EFL clubs, professional and academy, are routinely screened for diagnosis of cardiac function. In the female game, only the WSL and some of the Championship-level players (full-time) routinely undertake Cardiac Screening, identifying a huge inequality between the genders.
Michelle Slater, the Trust’s women and girls’ football lead, who has been working on the project with colleagues Jayne Bacon (head of Trust), Georgia Ball (head of finance) and Tony Denton (consultant physiotherapist), is keen to address the inequality.
She said: “The funding will support all our girls aged 14 and above within our pathway and EFP to have a cardio screening. Our priority is to keep our players safe and we believe that all the tiers of the women’s game should have mandatory screening.
“The women’s game has come forward in recent years but there are still areas where we are lagging behind and this is one of them. We hope this will pave the way for change so that more clubs supported by the FA will follow suit.”
The screening has been provided by Physiological Measurements Ltd and the company’s sports screening co-ordinator, Christine Peacock, said: “We are proud to have been involved in the arrangements for the Trust’s women and girls cardiac screenings.
“The Trust is certainly placing player health and welfare at the forefront for female athletes and should be congratulated on raising awareness in this area of the sporting community.”