Latest news with #playerSafety
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
NWSL says game should have stopped after Savy King collapsed on field
A game between Angel City and the Utah Royals should not have continued after Savy King collapsed on the field and had to be hospitalized, the National Women's Soccer League said Friday. The league said it came to the conclusion after reviewing its protocols and listening to feedback from stakeholders. There were persistent questions this week about the league's procedures. A league statement expressed regret for allowing last Friday's match in Los Angeles to go on after the 20-year-old Angel City defender was carted off the field while shaken players and fans looked on. 'The health and well being of the entire NWSL community remains our top priority, and in any similar situation going forward the game should and would be abandoned,' said the statement. King underwent surgery on Tuesday after doctors discovered a heart abnormality. The team announced she is recovering and her prognosis is good. The NWSL Players Association was among those that said the match should have been suspended after King's collapse in the 74th minute. The players' union issued a statement Friday saying it was grateful the league listened to the concerns. 'The league's acknowledgement that the game should have ended – and its commitment to adopting this protocol for the future, should it ever be needed – represents a meaningful step forward,' the NWSLPA said. 'It's a change made possible by the strength and unity of our players. Player safety is not a slogan. It is a practice.' The NWSL said earlier this week that it was reviewing its protocols. The league ultimately makes the decision when it comes to suspending, canceling or postponing games. NWSL rules for 2025 state that the league 'recognizes that emergencies may arise which make the start or progression of a Game inadvisable or dangerous for participants and spectators. Certain event categories automatically trigger the League Office into an evaluation of whether delay or postponement is necessary.' King was the second overall pick in the 2024 NWSL draft by expansion Bay FC and played 18 games for the club. She was traded to Angel City in February and had started in all eight games for the team this season.
Associated Press
16-05-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
NWSL says game should not have continued after Savy King collapsed on the field
A game between Angel City and the Utah Royals should not have continued after Savy King collapsed on the field and had to be hospitalized, the National Women's Soccer League said Friday. The league said it came to the conclusion after reviewing its protocols and listening to feedback from stakeholders. There were persistent questions this week about the league's procedures. A league statement expressed regret for allowing last Friday's match in Los Angeles to go on after the 20-year-old Angel City defender was carted off the field while shaken players and fans looked on. 'The health and well being of the entire NWSL community remains our top priority, and in any similar situation going forward the game should and would be abandoned,' said the statement. King underwent surgery on Tuesday after doctors discovered a heart abnormality. The team announced she is recovering and her prognosis is good. The NWSL Players Association was among those that said the match should have been suspended after King's collapse in the 74th minute. The players' union issued a statement Friday saying it was grateful the league listened to the concerns. 'The league's acknowledgement that the game should have ended — and its commitment to adopting this protocol for the future, should it ever be needed — represents a meaningful step forward,' the NWSLPA said. 'It's a change made possible by the strength and unity of our players. Player safety is not a slogan. It is a practice.' The NWSL said earlier this week that it was reviewing its protocols. The league ultimately makes the decision when it comes to suspending, canceling or postponing games. NWSL rules for 2025 state that the league 'recognizes that emergencies may arise which make the start or progression of a Game inadvisable or dangerous for participants and spectators. Certain event categories automatically trigger the League Office into an evaluation of whether delay or postponement is necessary.' King was the second-overall pick in the 2024 NWSL draft by expansion Bay FC and played 18 games for the club. She was traded to Angel City in February and had started in all eight games for the team this season. ___ AP soccer:
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Awoniyi's injury should lead to a rethink over flawed offside protocol
It was an accident waiting to happen. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could see the potential for the International Football Association Board's offside protocols in the era of VAR to cause serious injury. Needless collisions are inexcusable. It should not have been allowed to reach the point where we are wondering whether Nottingham Forest's Taiwo Awoniyi being placed in an induced coma will act as a red flag for the authorities. Injuries happen. What is not acceptable is the safety of players being compromised as a result of technology warping the game and officials being instructed not to flag for offside if a goalscoring opportunity is on the cards. The hope is that the sight of Awoniyi colliding with a post and suffering a serious abdominal injury during an attack that should never have been allowed to unfold during Forest's 2-2 draw with Leicester last Sunday will finally shake some sense into people. It is worth pointing out, of course, that Sian Massey-Ellis, who was running the line at the City Ground, was not at fault when she chose not to raise raise her flag when Anthony Elanga ran past the Leicester defence at the start of the move and crossed for Awoniyi. Elanga looked offside to the naked eye but these days officials are told to wait. The logic is that it is better to allow a move to play out and leave it to VAR to verify whether someone has strayed offside. The thinking is sound at a superficial level: in theory the law, brought in for the 2020-21 season, guards against goals being chalked off when someone was half a yard onside, rewarding attacking play, and means that nobody can complain about the unknown consequences of moves being brought to a premature halt by an incorrect offside flag. But the sweeping application of the law opens up officials to accusations that the fear of making a mistake has become too great. It seems that the smooth running of VAR, which looks increasingly impossible in a sport as dynamic as football, is a bigger priority than player safety and the quality of the spectacle. Few things about the modern game are more frustrating than watching play continue even when the offside is clear and obvious. The effect is artificial, a kind of non-football being allowed to unfold while an attack develops in hesitant fashion. I shared Pep Guardiola's irritation when he erupted on the touchline after such an incident during Manchester City's win against Chelsea last August. Everyone inside Stamford Bridge could see that Nicolas Jackson had mistimed his run. So much energy was wasted. The crowd's excitement at Chelsea scoring wasn't real. City's defenders should not have been made to scramble back to keep the ball out of their net. Jackson's teammates should not have been sprinting forward to support him. There is a feeling within the game that this application of the offside law has contributed to the rise in hamstring injuries in the Premier League. It is not ideal that defenders playing in high lines are repeatedly having to turn and set off on a series of unnecessary explosive runs. Defenders, managers and fans have every reason to complain when the flag eventually goes up. Awoniyi is not the first to suffer. City's Ederson and John Stones picked up injuries in similar circumstances last season. There should have been a reaction. Footballers are taught to play to the whistle. It does not matter if a defender knows that the attacker has been caught offside. There is no option but to play on if the flag stays down. There is always a chance of the offside trap malfunctioning and the goal being allowed to stand. But the uncertainty helps no one. Elanga was clearly offside. Play continued and Leicester's Facundo Buonanotte had to track back to help out. Buonanotte was involved in the challenge that led to Awoniyi's injury. It is the latest example of how the desire to use VAR to turn refereeing into a precise science is causing more problems than it solves. At the 2018 World Cup, when the technology was first used at a major tournament, the protocol was for assistant referees to keep the flag down for tight offsides. That makes sense. Some offsides are impossibly difficult to call. Leaving aside whether chalking off a goal for a toenail offside is in alignment with the original spirit of the law, as long as VAR exists there is a benefit to letting some moves play out before taking a closer look at a replay. Yet football is a game of collisions and fast movements. Its appeal lies in its imperfect lines, its shades of grey. We need to be mature enough to accept that human error is part of the game. It is time to be more flexible and allow assistant referees to raise the flag if they think they have seen a clear offside. And if that leads to teams missing out on goals that might have been? Better to have that than the constant stoppages and the increased risk of injury. Football is supposed to be fluid and chaotic. Attempting to turn it into an exact science, all clean and clinical, is out of touch. Awoniyi's injury is a reminder of the sport's ability to ruin even the best-laid plans.
New York Times
08-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Why did concussion spotters miss Anthony Stolarz's head injury in Game 1?
The process for pulling an NHL player from a game due to a potential concussion is complex. The league introduced concussion spotters during the 2015-16 season as part of its initial concussion protocols, but over time, the way those spotters interact with events on the ice has evolved. While it was initially on team employees to flag and pull players from games, the NHL later introduced neutral spotters at the league offices in New York and in arenas around the league. Advertisement The centralized league spotters are certified athletic trainers or therapists with hockey experience. They're based remotely at the Department of Player Safety offices and mandated to look out for signs of concussion in games, such as players lying motionless on the ice, displaying coordination or balance problems, giving blank or vacant looks, getting up slowly or clutching their head. It's up to those remote officials — and not the in-arena spotters, who are not necessarily athletic trainers or therapists — to determine whether a player needs to be removed immediately for concussion testing or if it's a discretionary call to be made by the team's medical staff. The concussion spotters' impact has already been felt several times throughout the NHL playoffs, including when Toronto Maple Leafs veteran John Tavares was removed from overtime in Game 4 of the first round against the Ottawa Senators after taking an elbow to the head. Three games later, Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz was hit in the head multiple times — once by a shot that knocked his goalie mask off and then by a controversial forearm to the head — and spotters did not remove him from Game 1 of the second round against the Florida Panthers. It wasn't until Stolarz went to the bench to vomit midway through the second period that he was removed from Monday's game, after which he was placed on a stretcher and taken to a Toronto hospital. The sequence of events alarmed those who work in the field of concussions and head injuries in professional sports. The fact Stolarz wasn't removed from the game earlier revealed gaps in the way the NHL handles potential concussions, according to Chris Nowinski, a behavioral neuroscientist who co-founded the Concussion Legacy Foundation after dealing with head injuries as a professional athlete. Advertisement 'I saw the elbow to the head and learned he was not removed, which was disappointing,' Nowinski said on Wednesday. 'That's very concerning with two potential concussions, neither of which he was removed for, and might help explain why we saw a player vomiting (during a game) for the first time in a long time.' Nowinski explained there were signs Stolarz may have had a concussion after the first blow to the head, like when the goalie shook his head after his mask was knocked off by a shot. Nowinski has done considerable research in this area and calls these events a 'Spontaneous Headshake after a Kinematic Event.' According to one study he was part of, SHAAKE has a positive predictive value of 72 percent for the diagnosis of concussion across all sports. Nowinski does not believe, however, that this is one of the signs NHL concussion spotters are identifying during games. As for why Stolarz wasn't pulled from the game after being hit in the head a second time, despite the fact he went down to the ice and held his head, the play was not ruled a mandatory pull from the league's central spotter like the Tavares incident. It's possible spotters missed the hit or simply deemed the contact and Stolarz's response not severe enough to warrant a mandatory pull. When that happens, the quiet-room decision becomes a discretionary pull, which means it is up to the team to decide whether the player comes out for further testing and examination. Stolarz did go to the bench and consult with Leafs head athletic therapist Paul Ayotte during a commercial break after the second blow to his head, but he then returned to the crease and played another two minutes before eventually leaving the game after he was sick. His replacement in goal, Joseph Woll, was not given a warmup when he entered play at the midway point of the game, something permitted only when league spotters pull a goaltender. Advertisement A Leafs spokesman confirmed Wednesday that Stolarz was not pulled by a concussion spotter during the game. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, however, said the league did a review of the process in this case and said it 'has not indicated any variations or misapplications of our concussion protocol.' But Nowinski said having players and team personnel involved in deciding whether or not players are OK to play can be problematic, as there's a conflict of interest, especially during high-stakes games in the playoffs. 'That probably creates a slower hook for pulling people out,' Nowinski said. 'Because if you pull somebody out who's healthy and it affects the game outcome, you could lose your job. 'I think 100 percent he should have been pulled. If this is a non-NHL game, athletes would be pulled. But we're just dealing with the realities of professional sports and the money that's on the line and people's jobs.' Nowinski explained that it was not possible to diagnose the severity of Stolarz's injury based on watching on television or the additional available details. However, the fact that Stolarz had vomited and was placed on a stretcher and taken to the hospital after leaving the game indicated the seriousness of what he was potentially dealing with. Nowinski said vomiting repeatedly can be a sign of a potential brain bleed, which may have been why the team would have quickly escalated his treatment. Stolarz was back with the team behind the scenes on Tuesday, but he is not playing for the Leafs in Game 2 on Wednesday night. His status for the remainder of the series is unknown, as the team has released no details about his injury or treatment. 'He's fine. He's recovering,' Leafs coach Craig Berube said. While Nowinski has been frustrated by the NHL's approach to concussion-related issues for years, he is encouraged that new NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh is forming a chronic traumatic encephalopathy advisory committee to educate players about CTE and its potential link to concussions in hockey. Advertisement Nowinski believes it is now on NHL players to educate themselves about the risks of injuries to their brains and the importance of having comprehensive concussion protocols that are closely followed. He argues the NHL needs to adopt more transparent, publicized 'no-go' symptoms of a concussion, like the NFL has, for determining when players will be removed from games. 'I don't think we should expect any improved leadership from the NHL,' Nowinski said. 'They are not going to be leaders on this. This is on the players at this point. I don't think the players are educated on the consequences of what these head impacts are going to do to them long-term. I doubt very many are aware that 19 of the first 20 NHL players that we have studied have had CTE. 'And I don't think they understand how bad CTE can be and how much it can affect them. So there is a lack of respect for the brains of their opponents and an appreciation of their (own) brains. And I think people are still willing to try to take out a good player for the other team and take that suspension, and that's not a culture that good players should want to play in. And so I would encourage them to take learning about CTE very seriously this summer and come and start taking steps to create a safer game. Because right now, if they get CTE, we can't fix them.' (Photo of Anthony Stolarz: John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)
