From Zurich to Auckland, the medical world needs to collaborate for advancements in football.
That was the message from FIFA’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Jiri Dvorak tonight as the Adidas Sports Medicine Centre in Auckland was inaugurated into the FIFA family.
The medical centre based in St John’s, became one of only six medical clinics worldwide to attain the ‘FIFA centre of excellence’ status by the world’s governing body.
“When medical developments are happening, we can’t do it alone from Zurich,” said Dvorak.
“We need the international collaboration and interdisciplinary networking. The digital world and the form of communication now possible allows us to collaborate online with our international
colleagues and this is imperative for medical advances.”
The New Zealand based centre was chosen for accreditation because of its long standing relationship with F-Marc (FIFA medical assessment and research centre) and its impressive
performance in several research studies conducted in collaboration with FIFA.
“Our centre has been involved with FIFA for over eight years,” said Dr. Tony Edwards, a partner at Adidas Sports Medical Centre.
“Our first project with them was a collaborative research project in 2001 which compared injury data between young New Zealand footballers and young New Zealand rugby
players.
“We continued to work with FIFA on initiatives such as launching ‘the eleven’, an ACL and lower limb prevention injury program that we introduced through ACC and New Zealand
football and that was launched three years ago.”
Professor Dvorak has ties with New Zealand which date back to 1984 when he was invited by the University of Otago to develop a diploma of medicine together with a medical school
in Christchurch. Dr Edwards was one of Dvorak’s students and now they work together in a different capacity.
FIFA accreditation for medical centres is a new concept for FIFA and has only been developed in the last eighteen months. It has only been available for clinics to apply for in
the last six to eight months and Dr Edward’s said it was a logical next step to apply for the accreditation.
FIFA accreditation is like a trademark for the clinic. It has importance for the institution because they have been accredited by the world’s biggest international sports
federation, which also adds marketing value for the institution.
Oceania General Secretary Tai Nicholas said this was an important event for the Oceania confederation.
“Today’s milestone is not only for FIFA but also Oceania because it’s another area and another example of how we try to professionalise football in the region, in this case in
the area of sports medicine.”
“Professor Dvorak is an integral part of the FIFA sports medicine program around the world and it’s great that he can be part of New Zealand and Oceania. “
Oceania will also benefit through networking education. By being directly linked to the FIFA headquarters and being online with regular communication it adds another dimension to
the work that is possible. Difficult cases can be discussed online with specialists at the Zurich headquarters and there is a possibility to link with specialists around the world to get the
collective opinion on particular problems.
“The centre will stand here as a centre of excellence, so that players who have problems or want an individual assessment can come and have that done, and know that it will be
done competently,” said Dvorak.
Dr Edward’s said he was looking forward to working with the South Pacific Nations of Oceania.
“We see ourselves as able to offer support for the different members of the confederation and that’s something we are certainly interested and committed to, and working with Tai
Nicholas is something that is very important to us.”
Professor Dvorak would like to see a future where football was the cure.
“Maybe in the future we will prescribe football three times a week for half an hour, to tackle, and effectively treat some of the diseases which we are confronted with such as
high blood pressure, Diabetes, Weight issues and other things.”