Professor named as one of top 40 football researchers in the world
Professor Mark De Ste Croix, Professor of Paediatric Sport and Exercise, has been named as one of the top 40 football researchers in the world and been invited by the FA to join the newly formed Women’s Football Science Committee and Advisory Panel.
Professor De Ste Croix is already an FA tutor and delivers on the level 3 course in talent identification at St Georges Park, the FAs National Football Centre. He has worked with a large number of football clubs around the world including Barcelona FC and Athletic Club Bilbao in Spain.
After being contacted by Athletic Club Bilbao to explore fatigue and injury risk in youth soccer players, Prof. De Ste Croix, Dr Jonathan Hughes and visiting fellow Dr Francisco Ayala are using artificial intelligence methods to explore injury risk. The team expect to visit Bilbao in early 2020 to present their findings and will be taking a group of second year students to visit the club training facilities and watch a match. The findings of the research are expected to have implications for training and recovery in elite youth soccer players.
He has previously completed projects funded by both UEFA and FIFA exploring fatigue and injury risk in female youth footballers. This work led to an FA funded project which involved developing, evaluation and injury prevention programme for female youth players on the elite player pathway. Prof. De Ste Croix also works locally with Bristol City men’s and women’s teams with a focus on academy players given his expertise in growth, maturation, injury risk and performance.
Professor Mark De Ste Croix said:
“It is a privilege to be recognised in this list alongside the top football researchers in the world. The recognition for all of our extensive work in football related research, much of it in women’s football, is down to the excellent work of colleagues and PhD students. We continue to impact practice especially in women’s football under our remit as an FA High Performance Centre for women’s football and the success of the recent women’s world cup indicates the large strides that women’s football has made in recent years.”