The University of Liverpool and FIFA have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishing a four-year collaboration aimed at strengthening methodological research practices across global football.
The partnership brings together FIFA Medical's commitment to improving player health and wellbeing worldwide with the University of Liverpool's expertise in outcome measurement and reporting in clinical research.
The collaboration will focus on developing and promoting robust methods for evaluating football-related health conditions, helping to improve consistency in how research findings and clinical outcomes are measured and reported.
Central to the partnership is the University's Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) Initiative, a global programme co-founded by Professor Paula Williamson from the University's Institute of Population Health. COMET works to improve the quality and relevance of health research by developing Core Outcome Sets (COS), agreed minimum standards for the outcomes that should be measured and reported in studies relating to specific health conditions.
By encouraging researchers to measure and report the same key outcomes, Core Outcome Sets enable evidence from different studies to be more effectively compared and combined, supporting better-informed healthcare decisions and helping to reduce waste in research.
Through the agreement, the University and FIFA will collaborate across three key areas:
- Capacity building and training, including the development of educational resources and guidance on consensus methodologies used to establish Core Outcome Sets for football-related health conditions.
- Development and standardisation of football-specific Core Outcome Sets, supporting FIFA Medical Centres of Excellence in identifying priority areas and establishing agreed outcome measures for future research and evaluation.
- Clinical protocol integration and data harmonisation, helping to embed agreed outcome measures into routine clinical practice and electronic medical record systems across participating centres.
The collaboration will also place a strong emphasis on inclusive research practices, ensuring that player perspectives are considered alongside those of clinicians, researchers and other relevant stakeholders during the development process.
Paula Williamson, Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Liverpool and co-founder of the COMET Initiative, said: "Improving the quality, consistency and relevance of health research is central to evidence-based decision making. Through COMET, we have worked with researchers, clinicians, patients and policymakers around the world to develop methods that ensure studies measure outcomes that matter most to those who use the evidence.
"We are pleased to be working with FIFA to apply these principles within football medicine and to support the development of robust, internationally relevant approaches to outcome measurement in player health research."
Professor Mike Clarke, Professor of Research Methodology at Queen's University Belfast and a co-founder of the COMET initiative, added: "I am delighted to see this new collaboration between the University of Liverpool and FIFA. It will help extend the work of COMET into research and outcome measurement in the world's largest team sport."
Andreas Serner, Research Lead, FIFA Medical concluded: "We are excited to strengthen our collaboration with the COMET Initiative through the University of Liverpool. COMET has already contributed to several of our player health projects in the recent years, which has improved the methodological aspects of our work. Developing and implementing Core Outcome Sets for specific football-related health conditions is an important step towards more impactful research that can improve player health globally."
