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18 Sports Litig. Alert [1] (2021)

handle is hein.hackneytwo/sptla0018 and id is 1 raw text is: Sports Litigation Alert Archives Return to Archives Home Page I Sports Litigation Alert Home Page January 15, 2021 Soccer Players' Head Injury Risk Could Be Reduced with Simple Adjustments to the Ball Up to 22 percent of soccer injuries are concussions that can result from players using their heads to direct the ball during a game. To reduce risk of injury, a new study recommends preventing how hard a ball hits the head by inflating balls to lower pressures and subbing them out when they get wet. The study, conducted by Purdue University engineers, found that inflating balls to pressures on the lower end of ranges enforced by soccer governing bodies such as the NCAA and FIFA could reduce forces associated with potential head injury by about 20 percent. But if the ball gets too wet, it can quickly surpass the NCAA weight limit for game play and still produce a nasty impact, the researchers said. If the ball has too high of a pressure, gets too waterlogged, or both, it actually turns into a weapon. Heading that ball is like heading a brick, said Eric Nauman, a Purdue professor of mechanical engineering and basic medical sciences with a courtesy appointment in biomedical engineering. Soccer governing bodies already regulate ball pressure, size, mass, and water absorption at the start of a game, but Nauman's lab is the first to conduct a study evaluating the effects of each of these ball parameters on producing an impact associated with potential neurophysiological changes. The results are published in the journal PLOS One. The researchers discuss the work in a video on YouTube at https://youtu.be/3b_19wWK6A. The study also evaluated ball velocity, finding that this variable actually contributes the most to how hard a ball hits. But ball pressure and water absorption would be more realistic to control. You can't control how hard a player kicks a ball. There are other ways to decrease those forces and still have a playable game, Nauman said. A professional soccer player heads the ball about 12 times over the course of a single game and 80o times in games over an entire season, past studies have shown. The lower end of NCAA and FIFA pressure ranges, which the researchers discovered could help reduce the ball's peak impact force, already aligns with ::::: -C'ay ti ,S l,- 1 -C'ay ti ,S l,- 1 -C'ay ti ,S l,. : ,,.., ,1...,......-n .r ., -,n .r<,,;, :., ..,:::s. ,,,.:1..., ..., , ....,,::;nx y :,n x.. / :.. ..,.:1... 1... .;.> :.,, : ,..;.....,coxr?%c§xs:. :.y .. :1,: : %si : :1,: . :1,: :.y .. :1,: : %si : :1,: ...s , .. .. ..: .. . .. .., .. .. .. ., .. . .. .s , .. .. .. .. .. ..: .. . .. .....:..,........L~.. ..L~... ~..:, .... : ., .....r :..:, ..L~.. ..L~ .......:............~ ., ...... ..L~.. ..L~... ~.. :,...... .:L~..' .:L~v,.: rL~ .rL~ .rL~ .rL~ /.. /.. 1. r, l'i ..e.1'::c r. . .:..:,.,a..:.ao.:..:, ..a:., ..a:,:i.:rt...:.,;;,., 'F.<..:.,;3,: rti s, ..a:., ..ao.:..:,.,a..: cti s., cti s, cti: cti=.

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