England captain Leah Williamson says women’s football schedule ‘unsustainable’

England captain Leah Williamson feels women players are “driving ourselves into the ground” with a hectic schedule which could lead to more serious injuries unless an unsustainable workload is managed properly.

Arsenal defender Williamson was forced to miss last summer’s World Cup, where the Lionesses finished runners-up, after rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament in April 2023.

Earlier this month, Chelsea forward Sam Kerr sustained an ACL injury during Chelsea’s warm weather training in Morocco, leaving the Australia forward with her own lengthy spell of rehabilitation.

UEFA has launched an initiative to investigate and better understand ACL injuries in the women’s game, which have also impacted England forward Beth Mead and two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas.

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Williamson, who captained England to Euro success on home soil in 2022, feels more must be done to better manage player workload going forward.

“We’re not bred for this. Nowadays we get to October and girls are saying, ‘I’m tired’ because you’re carrying so much from the previous season,” Williamson said in an interview with Telegraph Women’s Sport.

“Ultimately, I think the way you’re taking women’s football right now, you won’t be able to increase the ticket prices or get bigger crowds in the stadiums because you won’t have players to watch.

“We are driving ourselves into the ground with it, so some sort of solution needs to be found soon, in terms of the schedule, otherwise it’s not sustainable.”

Williamson hopes a balance can be struck in future international calendars.

“When they – FIFA, UEFA, all the main people – do the scheduling, it should always be, ‘Rest first’,” she said. “(They should say), ‘as a professional athlete, to be able to perform all year round, you have to have four weeks off at the end of the season and six weeks pre-season, to be at no detriment to your health’.

“But at the end of the World Cup, some of the girls came back and had five days off. Five days, after getting to the final.

“Put in time when neither club nor country can touch a player, and just let them have a rest. But instead what we do is say, ‘You need to play this, this, this’ and then say, ‘I’ll give you two days off in between’. It’s impossible. It’s unsustainable.”