We’re in the second week of the Women’s World Cup, and many of the tournament’s top stars are out: England’s captain Leah Williamson and other top player Beth Mead, USA’s rising young star Cat Macario, Netherlands’ all-time leading goal scorer Vivianne Miedema, and the list goes on.

The common denominator? The dreaded anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. It seems so common for us to hear about ACL injuries in women’s soccer, yet so rare for us to hear about it on the men’s side.

That’s because women are two to eight times more likely to suffer an ACL tear than men, as reported by Yale Medicine. We spoke to a fifth year NCAA Division 1 soccer player for Washington State University and the University of Central Florida and VIS League Member Kelis Barton, as she is recovering from her second ACL injury.

“I didn’t realize going into college soccer how common it was. You kind of hear about it and you know it’s a big injury but up until I was actually playing in college, you definitely don’t realize how common it is,” she said. During one of her seasons at Washington State, three or four girls went down with the same injury in a single season.

But why is the disparity amongst men and women so large?

Many experts have agreed that the reasoning goes beyond any physiological differences.,

One common theme — unsurprisingly — is funding. It’s no secret that women’s sports are largely underfunded when compared to men’s, but some believe that if this monetary disparity were solved, the rate of ACL tears in women’s sports could look a lot more like men’s.

So, what is the correlation between funding and knee injury?

Beginning even at the pre-collegiate level, women lack access to professional facilities, safe fields, and accurately designed gear.

Lack of Facilities and Resources:

Men have access to higher levels of opportunity from a much younger age. They are able to sign professional contracts and get involved at high levels early on, which grants them access to superior fields, strength and injury prevention training, professional therapists and trainers, etc. Women however oftentimes are forced to go out on their own to receive these same things.

Kelis Barton experienced this firsthand, “That's always been how it was growing up. You just had to work with what you got,” she said in relation to being scheduled second and being considered last priority, behind the men’s teams.

Second Hand Fields:

While seemingly insignificant, the surface one is playing on can have a great impact on injury-risk, beyond just ACL tears.

Women are often thought of second, as Barton said, and are forced to play on fields that have already been used by men before them. These fields may be roughed up, have holes or divots, which may be disastrous in regards to potential injuries. Per the National Institute of Health, nearly three-quarters of ACL tears are non-contact related. This means that the blame can be placed on two things in these cases: the athlete or the surface.

“You do have to share. A lot of times it was like field time. We never got to really choose when we wanted the field. The men always got their first choice like they had it in the morning and we would train at like 2 PM.”

Gear Designed for Men:

A lot of our world has been designed with men in mind as the end-user. The book Invisible Woman by Caroline Criado utilizes data to showcase the bias present in our everyday lives. For example, cars are designed for the typical man, so women are 50% more likely to be severely injured as a result of a crash. Google’s speech recognition software is 70% more likely to accurately understand male voices, fitness monitors underestimate steps taken in activities like housework by up to 74%, the list goes on.

Women’s cleats are no exception. Up until very recently, they’ve been manufactured based on men’s cleats, while men’s cleats were originally researched and designed based on men’s feet. Women’s feet and men’s feet tend to be structured differently, so wearing men’s cleats (or women’s cleats based on the men’s design) can have an impact on biomechanics and injury risk.

Nike is taking their first step to change this. In June, they unveiled the strictly for women Phantom Luna Soccer Cleat, dubbing it the most researched women's-led football boot design. They are only the third big-brand to take initiative however. NPR reports that in 2020, Ida Sports released their first women-specific boot, and then Puma followed suit when they released their own version of the cleat in 2021.

As we move into the future, it is evident that insufficient funding for women’s athletics isn’t just a superficial issue, but one that is affecting women’s health and physical stability. The question stands then, if we were to support women athletes wholly, would the ACL tear rate go down? There’s only one way for us to find out!