DEVELOPING A HEALTH SURVEILLANCE STRATEGY FOR PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLERS IN COMPLIANCE WITH UK HEALTH AND SAFETY LEGISLATION

The need for health surveillance for professional footballers has been assessed against criteria specified in UK health and safety legislati on. As footballers suffer from chronic injuries under normal playing c onditions, professional football clubs have a requirement to implement health surveillance programmes to protect their players. A health sur veillance programme, based on benchmarking a player's fitness and addr essing the issues of pre-recruitment, pre-season, during-season, post- season, and rehabilitation assessment, is proposed.