Aspetar has announced a three-year partnership with the European College of Sport Science (ECSS). The leading sports and orthopaedic hospital revealed the collaboration following this year’s annual ECSS congress, which took place from July 2-5 in Amsterdam.

As part of the agreement, Aspetar and ECSS will launch an Excellence in Football Research Award. The aim of the award is to attract and support novel, applied research projects that have potential applications on the football pitch. The top six projects will be awarded the accolade.

In addition, as part of the collaboration, Aspetar will serve as a gold partner of the annual conference for the next two years. 

Dr Khalifa al-Kuwari, director-general of Aspetar, said: “It is with great pleasure that we announce the three-year partnership between ECSS and Aspetar. By collaborating with ECSS, Aspetar is demonstrating its dedication to furthering research and this will help athletes around the world fulfil their potential.”

The 19th ECSS congress comprised symposia, oral presentations, e-poster presentations, meetings, workshops and satellite sessions. There were also prizes for Young Investigators and an Award for Nutrition. Aspetar has attended the ECSS conference for the last three years as a sponsor. During this time, a number of leading medical experts from the hospital have made presentations on a range of topics. This year, the team hosted a comprehensive symposium titled, “How to win the match: The science behind football”. This was a timely discussion as the FIFA World Cup was taking place in Brazil at the same time. Attended by more than 200 members, the popularity of the seminar highlighted a widespread interest in the topic.