In your work for FIFA, the world governing body of association football (soccer), what is your role and what are some of the main projects you are currently working on? 

I work for FIFA Medical as a medical researcher, leading the brain health research pillar. 

My role encompasses overseeing our many varied projects related to heading, head impacts and head injuries in football. 

Currently, three of our main projects include: 

1. FIFA heading in football research database—over the last 12 months we have created a database which contains every original research study with heading or headers as an outcome measure. We are using this database to undertake a series of individual systematic reviews related to topics such as the short-, medium- and long-term effects of headers, factors which influence head impact magnitude during head-to-ball contact and heading risk mitigation strategies. This is a really exciting project as we are collaborating with many researchers around the world. The results are helping us to understand where the research gaps are as a means to guide future projects.
2. Heading coaching frameworks—one of the main areas I will be presenting on during my keynote at APASC25 relates to our work on the coaching of heading as a head injury prevention strategy. Most head injuries in football are caused by player-to-player contact when two or more players are competing for an aerial ball, for example, elbow-to-head or head-to-head impacts, rather than the ball itself. We are currently working on a series of projects to better understand three key areas: how technical and tactical skills for aerial play are taught to players and coaches, what player actions and behaviours contribute to head injury risk and what coaching strategies attempt to address these risks. The ultimate aim of these projects is to inform the creation of heading coaching resources to better support players and coaches globally.
3. Football-specific on-pitch concussion assessment protocol—the third main project is around the on-pitch assessment of players with a suspected concussion. Football differs from other sports because decision-making around concussions and whether a player can return to play is predominantly made on the field of play—rather than the sidelines or medical room. As part of this project, we have just completed a systematic review exploring the diagnostic accuracy of concussion assessment items for on-pitch assessment protocol, and gathered practical insight and feedback via a modified Delphi process with team doctors from many of FIFA’s 211 member associations. 

Sports physiotherapist Kerry Peek will be presenting a keynote on sports-related concussion injuries at APASC25.

You mentioned your project related to the coaching of heading, can you tell us more about what you have found so far? 

One of the first studies we published in this area explored the technical differences in heading between men and women from the FIFA World Cup 2022 (men) and FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023. 

What we found was that women tended to perform fewer controlled headers than men, were less likely to head the ball using their foreheads, were less likely to use their upper body (for protection) and closed their eyes earlier before the header when compared with a similar sample of men. 

Both our published and unpublished qualitative research has also shown that women are less likely to report formal training in heading technique, which might in part explain these findings as well as why women are more likely to be injured by the ball and report a higher number of concussions than men. 

While these research findings are interesting, how we use this research to create tangible resources is the real challenge. 

How do you think your research on head injury prevention in football might translate to other sports? 

I think there is a lot of cross-pollination between sports, we can learn a lot from each other. 

For instance, the approach we are taking to injury prevention is not dissimilar to the process in rugby union where teaching improved tackle technique or how players fall and land (informed by martial arts techniques) has gathered increasing interest. 

While headers are a unique feature of football (where players use their heads to deliberately re-direct the trajectory of the ball), much of the training/coaching of header technique (and tactics) does not have to include head-to-ball contact. 

There are several translational skills in football including, developing the ability to track a ball’s trajectory, learning optimal body positioning to follow both the ball and the movements of other players around them and improved use of the upper body to protect their space in contested match scenarios. 

These skills can be adapted and applied to other sports such as Australian rules football and basketball, where aerial balls are also common. 

>>Dr Kerry Peek is a medical researcher with FIFA Medical, leading the brain health research pillar. She has over 20 years of clinical experience as a physiotherapist, working in both England and Australia as an exercise-based clinician mainly in sub-acute rehabilitation. She has worked with athletes from a range of different sports including football (soccer), motor sport, rugby and American football. Her research is focused on heading, head impacts and head injuries in football. She is also an associate professor in physiotherapy at the University of Sydney, where she has taught physiotherapy students and supervised higher degree research students since 2019. 

>>Kerry will be presenting the keynote session ‘Prevention of sports-related head injuries: what can we learn from current research in football (soccer)?’ on Friday 24 October, as well as presenting on ‘Evaluating concussion in sporting settings: are our assessment tools fit for purpose?’ at the Sports & Exercise breakfast on Friday 24 October at 7:00am.

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