Client Spotlight: The Football Association

The Football Association is the governing body of association football in England, it is the oldest football association in the world and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the amateur and professional game in its territory. As a prominent British institution, the company is committed to research and development in clinical exercise science, digital data analytics and application development. The FA has embarked on a number of unique and interesting R&D projects, from technology which monitors and tracks athletes during games, to medical research on cardiac arrest in elite footballers.

Improving safety of players and spectators within the stadium

As we have seen in the most recent European Championships with the collapse of Danish footballer Christian Eriksen, sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) remains a tragic occurrence in football matches. Due to the significant shortcomings in treatment available on the field the FA have worked on the development and implementation of a treatment procedure to address incidences of sudden cardiac arrest in elite footballers and the general public. This procedure involves a three-step resuscitation pathway which can vastly improve treatment outcomes. In order to develop this protocol, the FA’s sports science and clinical medicine professionals undertook extensive clinical trials.

The outcome of this three-step protocol means that the FA were able to consistently achieve a 50-60% improvement in survival rates compared to national pre-hospital cardiac arrest standards.

Using Real-time data to improve performance

Real-time data analysis is becoming an increasingly important tool when comparing and analysing both team and player performance in football matches.The Player Profile System (PPS) is a project which uses technology to give England players, coaches and staff a competitive advantage. This involves a “one stop shop” source of current, valid, comprehensive and trusted information on players, teams and events to bolster better decision making.

The project aims to deliver more efficient and integrated processes supporting key activities, improving the ability to analyse and create insights about players, teams and events to improve future outcomes. By developing this analytics programme, the FA was also able to identify the most demanding periods of match play.

Find out more about the innovative projects of Leyton’s clients in our case studies library.