Improving Health and Performance in Football

Dear Colleagues,

“Football” is a general term used to describe sports in which players kick a ball and comprises many sports played globally. Researchers and coaches working with individuals engaged in sport should balance the pursuit of athletic excellence with their responsibility of safeguarding and enhancing the health of individuals engaged in sport. As a result, our Special Issue aims to collate emerging evidence and applied insights that address performance enhancement and/or player health.

Our Special Issue is seeking manuscripts that examine the development of physical qualities, injury prevention, rehabilitation, recovery strategies, and the integration of sport science technologies into training and match environments. We also encourage the submission of manuscripts that examine long-term athlete wellbeing, mental health, and the impact of workload management across different levels of play from youth to professional athletes. Our Special Issue welcomes submissions of original research, meta-analysis, systematic reviews, narrative reviews, commentaries, opinion articles, and perspectives.

We encourage research that examines males and/or females of all ages across all football codes (e.g., football/soccer, rugby league, rugby union, rugby sevens, touch rugby, Australian Rules Football, American Football, Canadian Football, and Gaelic Football). By drawing on diverse populations and settings, our Special Issue aims to broaden the understanding of how performance and health can be promoted throughout life and across different sports. We strive for articles in our Special Issue to collectively demonstrate that athletic development and athlete health should not be viewed as competing goals but interdependent objectives essential to sustaining the growth of football, safeguarding athletes, and helping improve the standard of sport performance and health. 

Dr. Michael A Carron
Dr. Vincent Dalbo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sports is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.