FIFA establishes Medical Centre of Excellence in Sweden
The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) has selected the Stockholm Sports Trauma Research Centre as a "FIFA Medical Centre of Excellence". This is the first time that FIFA judges a research centre in Sweden to possess sufficient medical expertise in the field. According to Mikael Santoft, secretary general of the Swedish Football Association, the Stockholm Sports Trauma Research Centre has amassed unique competence and managed to gather medical care, research and education under one and the same roof. This is the result of an effective collaboration between Karolinska Institutet, the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, Sophiahemmet, the Capio Artro Clinic and the Astrid Lindgren Childrenīs Hospital at Karolinska University Hospital. "We are naturally proud and delighted by this announcement and it will encourage continuing development in the football-medicine field," says Professor Suzanne Werner, director of the Stockholm Sports Trauma Research Centre at Karolinska Institutet. The "FIFA Medical Centre of Excellence" concept reflects FIFAs intention to improve football-medical care in both the short and long term by focusing on prevention, the treatment of injury and research. "This strengthens our relationship with sport, particularly football, and itīs football that accounts for an incomparably large number of our sporting injuries," explains Magnus Forssblad, orthopaedist and CEO of the Capio Artro Clinic.
