BBC women's footballer of the Year

Bumping this post to add to the various threads about Barbra Banda.

That article is really good. Apologies for my overestimation of the risk of ACL injuries, duc. I got that number from a reputable source.

Some other possible culprits:

1. Women footballers' bodies being less hardened by game play - fewer opportunities to play as they grow up
2. Q angle affecting direction of force going through knee
3. Relaxin hormone during menstrual cycle causing connective tissue to become too stretchy
4. Quality of pitch

There are others - the ongoing study is wide-ranging and will take several years.

It's one of several possible causes that are being studied.

I read somewhere that boots are designed for men’s feet and that’s part of the reason for increased acl injuries. Personally I have no idea if this is correct!

Thanks Jean

I think the issue is very poorly understood (strange, that, for a problem that disproportionately impacts women), other than it offers further watertight evidence of the many differences between male and female physiology.

https://www.boa.ac.uk/resource/how-to-tackle-the-increased-rate-of-acl-injuries-in-women-s-football.html

"female athletes have 3-6 times higher risk of ACL injury than males."

Yeah. BIG problem.

Wow!

ACL injuries in women's football occur about 8 times more often than in men's football.

The reasons are being investigated, it's thought that physiological differences are part of the answer but far from the entire answer.

happens incomparably more often than at the equivalent men's level.

People keep saying this, but is it really true? People might get the impression from reading MN that ACL injuries in men were rare, but men suffer from ACL injuries in football and rugby all the time. I wouldn't argue that better boot design might help both men and women reduce injuries.

Thanks where will the details be released?

Could be. They released #s 11 through 40 overnight.

No Banda yet, so I suppose a top 10 spot is in the bag. The two Chawingwa 'sisters' were given perhaps deliberately uncontroversial spots in the teen rankings.

The thing that really jumped out at me from the list is the ludicrously high number of top players who've suffered ACL ruptures. happens incomparably more often than at the equivalent men's level. It's almost as if male and female bodies were, well, different....

TwelveOFive will be going to BBC Manchester and Broadcasting House in London to protest and we will release details shortly. Anyone can join us. Please do.

they seem to have put the feature on hiatus, has been a day or two with no continuation of the countdown?

The sad thing is, the Guardian list could contain male footballers without us knowing. Because male footballers are allowed to play in women's football by the authorities.

@duc748 That didn’t stop the BBC online quiz page having him as one of their questions last week! Talk about salt in the wound, you can’t tell me that wasn’t deliberate.

i wonder who'll win the guardian newspaper equivalent (I think voted for by journos rather than readers)?

www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2024/dec/03/the-100-best-female-footballers-in-the-world-2024

The BBC were surely perfectly well aware that BB, once on the short-list, would almost certainly be voted in. Still, the selection was nuffink to do with them.

That's a lazy response from the BBC. I would have thought that since there were doubts and "conflcting reports" then that person should not have been eligible.

They might just as well scrap the sportswoman of the year contest if it's going to be filled with men with DSDs and transwomen who are men.

And actually, why default to 'she', anyway? The BBC may say, rightly, that there's no solid proof in the public area that BB is a bloke. Likewise, there's equally no proof that BB is a woman. So perhaps, until the precise facts can be verified, this might be a rare case where the neutral 'they' would be preferable?

I've given up complaining to the BBC because of the ease with which they wiggle out of these things.

They didn't draw up the shortlist, that's fair. But they did have an opportunity to say that the shortlist may not meet the criteria of their award. Where presumably the women's footballer of the year shortlist should contain women - ideally women's sport would test the sex of everyone, like World Aquatics do in swimming, so that we're well past any doubt before it gets to this point.

I appreciate it's a different issue but it's similar in some ways to the way that they handled the Dr Ronx debacle at the CAN conference. See the final paragraph of this story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13231759/cbbc-medical-presenter-accused-trans-mob-storm-conference-puberty-blocker-row.html

Correct, Dr Ronx isn't a BBC employee but it's a BBC platform on which Dr Ronx is seen by the audience. Surely they should be actively concerned that a Dr who they put on the screen is actively campaigning against evidence-based healthcare. Likewise, it's a BBC platform on which Banda is receiving this award. Surely they should be actively concerned that the football woman of the year may not be a woman.

For the BBC to say "not me, guv" is ridiculous.

They know 'she' is male.
Pathetic.