For female footballers, menstruation can affect everything from how they feel on the pitch to how they experience the game. Yet when we talk about developing women’s football, menstrual health is often treated as an afterthought.
CAF is now challenging that.
The organisation has launched a first-of-its-kind research project on menstrual health, with President Dr Patrice Motsepe saying it reflects the organisation’s “ambitions to create an environment in which female players can thrive both on and off the pitch.”
The research is being carried out across all six African football zones, examining menstrual health, participation and player welfare among players involved in the CAF Women’s Champions League and the African School Football Championship.
What exactly is CAF trying to find out?
The scope of CAF’s research is extremely broad.
The research examines menstrual health knowledge, how players talk about it, access to medical support, hormonal contraception, and the availability of menstrual products during competitions and performance.
It also covers different levels of the game, from elite football to grassroots participation.
Age, access to healthcare, education, facilities, and the environment around a player can all shape how one experiences their period. This makes understanding the different circumstances players face an important part of the research, rather than assuming that one approach will work for everyone.
CAF expects the findings to inform future guidance, education and player-support programmes, potentially turning what is currently an overlooked part of women’s football into something that is understood and supported from the grassroots upwards, as the foundations of the women’s game continue to develop across the continent.
Why does this matter beyond the research paper?
The significance of the research extends far beyond understanding what happens during a player’s menstrual cycle. It is connected to some of the biggest questions facing the women’s game: how do you retain girls in football, protect player welfare and build a professional environment that recognises the realities of female athletes?
Millions of girls globally leave sport around puberty, with factors including stigma, a lack of resources and difficult symptoms contributing to a lack of retention in the women’s game. If football wants girls to stay in the game, these are issues that need to be understood much earlier.
Better menstrual health education could help make it easier for players to ask for help when they need it. Medical support and appropriate screening could also help identify health concerns before they become reasons to step away from the game.
For professional players, welfare is about much more than what happens during 90 minutes on a matchday. It includes medical support, contracts, leave and whether a player can build a career while also having the option of having a family.
For decades, much of sporting infrastructure has been developed around a male athlete as the default. Research like CAF’s offers an opportunity to question that model rather than simply reproduce it.
Menstrual health may be only one part of the picture, but understanding it could help shape a football system that recognises what female players actually need.
If the women’s game is going to continue growing, player welfare cannot be something that is considered afterwards. It has to be part of the conversation from the beginning
