Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Objectives: To evaluate potential head injuries across three consecutive FIFA Beach Soccer World Cups held between 2019 and 2024. Methods: All match footage from the 2019, 2021, and 2024 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cups (men only tournaments) were evaluated focusing on occurrence of a potential head injury, player actions (including overhead kick), and visible signs of a possible concussion. Results: A total of 309 potential head injuries were identified across 96 matches (3.2/match), with an incidence of 527.8 potential head injuries per 1000 match-hours. In total, 17.5 % (n = 54) of potential head injuries were associated with overhead kicks, 17.9 % (n = 55) demonstrated a visible sign of a possible concussion (involving 51 different players), and 25.3 % (n = 78) occurred during aerial duels. Ball-related head impacts accounted for 15.5 % of all potential head injuries, rising to 46.3 % in overhead kick-related potential head injuries and 34.6 % among potential head injuries with visible signs of a possible concussion. Eighty-nine potential head injuries (28.9 %) were evaluated by medical staff, 27 (49.1 %) of the 55 players with visible signs of a possible concussion were not medically evaluated. Conclusions: The findings demonstrated that the incidence of potential head injuries in beach soccer is 3.2 per-match, which is 7.6 × higher than the data previously reported in men's association football. Player-to-player impact, unintentional ball impacts and overhead kicks contributed significantly to this elevated incidence. The observation that 17.9 % of potential head injuries exhibited visible signs of possible concussion highlights the need for future studies that incorporate clinical evaluations to improve understanding of these potential head injuries.