Turns out that when it comes to sports injuries, women aren't
faking it.
Female soccer players are half as likely to fake an injury as their male
counterparts, according to a study from the Wake Forest Baptist
Medical Center.
Published in the July edition of Research in Sports Medicine,
the study reviewed 47 televised matches from two international
women's tournaments, dividing all apparent injuries into "definite"
-- those when a player left the field within five minutes or was
visibly bleeding -- with the rest being classified as
questionable.
The research found a rate of 0.78 definite
injuries per match and 4.96 questionable injuries per women's
match.
According to the press release:
[The] research indicates that apparent injury incidents for
women are much less frequent than for men, however, occurring at a
rate of 5.74 per match as compared to 11.26 per men’s match. The
proportion of apparent injuries that were classified as “definite”
was nearly twice as high for women, 13.7 percent, as compared to
7.2 percent for men.
"It is clear from this study that female players don't fake
injuries at the same rate as their male counterparts," said Daryl
Rosenbaum, an assistant professor of Family and Community Medicine
at Wake Forest Baptist.
Rosenbaum hopes that the study will help FIFA and those
monitoring "injury simulation" issues tainting professional soccer
focus their efforts on addressing the issue.