PROJECT PARTNERS
Royal Dutch Football Association
VeilgheidNL
UMC Utrecht
Athletic Skills Model
FUNDING
The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development
BACKGROUND
In the Netherlands, football is the sport with the highest absolute number of injuries: yearly, around 850,000 injuries on average are reported by youth and adult players (especially aged 10-34 years), leading to nearly 35,000 Emergency Department visits. Therefore, the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) has allied with several leading partners in injury prevention research to work towards injury prevention in Dutch football. To prevent lower extremity injuries in amateur football players, the 11+ programme was developed as a complete warm-up programme, showing an overall 39% to 48% injury reduction among youth and adult amateur players. Therefore, the logical next step for the KNVB and partners is to work towards the implementation of the 11+ programme across the Netherlands, taking into account the lessons learnt in other countries about its implementation (facilitators and barriers such as concurring with the current language/practice/structure of the coaches).
APPROACH OF THE IMPLEMENTATION
The ‘Translating Research into Injury Prevention Practice’ framework (TRIPP) stages 5 and 6 underline the importance of a pertinent implementation plan and related evaluation for the future uptake of preventive measures. The RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) Sport Setting Matrix (SSM) framework is widely accepted and applied for the evaluation of the implementation of preventive measures.
OBJECTIVES
The overall aim is to implement the 11+ program in the Dutch amateur football (youth and adult; male and female).
(1) To explore how the 11+ program fits the current language/practice/structure of the coaches within the Dutch amateur football context;
(2) To develop a structured and evidence-based implementation plan tailored to the Dutch football context to promote the structured implementation of the 11+ program;
(3) To initiate the implementation of the 11+ program in the Dutch amateur football according to the defined implementation plan and to evaluate its implementation.