ABSTRACT
In the last 10–15 years, injury prevention has received a lot of attention in sports medicine and by sports governing bodies, e.g. the protection of the athlete’s health has recently become one of declared objectives of the International Olympic Committee. In 1994, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) created its Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC) with the aim ‘to prevent football injuries and to promote football as a health-enhancing leisure activity, improving social behaviour’. Since then, F-MARC has developed and evaluated its injury prevention programme ‘11+’ in different scientific studies, demonstrating how a simple exercise-based programme can significantly decrease the incidence of injuries in amateur football players. Several publications have further confirmed the preventive effects of 11+ and have evaluated its performance effects in amateur footballers. Furthermore, implementation strategies of this prevention programme have been studied and 11+ has been implemented at a large scale in the real world of amateur football. From 2009 to 2016, F-MARC promoted and disseminated 11+ worldwide among its member associations. Adaptations of the injury prevention programme for children and referees have been developed and evaluated. This chapter summarises 22 years (1994-2016) of scientific and on-field work by F-MARC, in the spirit of its original aim.
