Introduction: Football is a world-wide the most popular sport, but also connected to high incidence of musculoskeletal injuries, especially among amateur players. The injuries are often triggered by various risk factors that can be reduced by appropriate preventive exercise programmes. The most widely utilized injury prevention programme in football is FIFA 11+. The aim of this literature review was to analyse published scientific evidence of the FIFA 11+ program efficacy for reducing injury rate in football players. Methods: PubMed, PEDro and CINAHL databases were searched by combining keywords related to injury incidence and FIFA 11+ exercise program. The search was limited to scientific reports of randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials and controlled cohort studies written in English. Results: Five randomized controlled trials were included in the literature review. Their methodological quality was moderate, with an average score of 5.2 on PEDro scale. The incidence of all injuries in the intervention groups was on average 34.3% lower, and by far the most injured were lower extremities (84.8%). Discussion and conclusion: FIFA 11+ is an effective preventive program to reduce the incidence of injuries, especially for young, amateur football players. Similar research is needed to determine the effectiveness of the program in professional players at the top level.
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