Project ACL Expands to the NWSL

The NWSL is entering a study that could directly affect how often its players are asked to take the field - and how clubs manage recovery between matches.

The National Women’s Soccer League Players Association (NWSLPA) and the league have joined Project ACL in a three-year initiative focused on reducing anterior cruciate ligament injuries in professional women’s soccer.

Project ACL, based in Surrey, southwest of London, was launched in 2024 as a collaboration between FIFPRO, the PFA, Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. The initiative collects player-reported data across a full season, focusing on the physical demands placed on athletes rather than isolated injury events.

In 2026, the project expands to include both the NWSL and the Women’s Super League, linking two of the top leagues in the women’s game. That expansion allows for direct comparison of match congestion, travel demands, and recovery windows across different competitive environments.

The need for that comparison is clear. Women are twice as likely to suffer an ACL injury as men, and nearly two-thirds of those injuries occur without contact. That shifts the focus away from collisions and toward workload, recovery time, and scheduling decisions that clubs control. Despite that, less than 10 percent of sports science research is focused on women, leaving those decisions largely unsupported by sport-specific data.

Project ACL tracks workload, travel, and what it defines as critical zone appearances — matches played with fewer than five days of recovery. Those windows force a decision between maintaining lineup continuity and reducing physical load, particularly during congested stretches of the schedule. The data is collected through the FIFPRO Player Workload Monitoring tool, which is used to assess how those demands correlate with injury risk.