Abstract
Although concern exists regarding the potential relationship between heading, head impacts, and head injuries, and long-term brain health in association football players, the incidence of these events is yet to be reported in futsal. It has been hypothesized that futsal's format of a smaller field and fewer players might mean that players are exposed to fewer head contact events than those reported in football. Our objective was to analyze the incidence and characteristics of headers, head impacts, and potential head injuries in one men's international futsal tournament. In this cross-sectional video analysis study, all head contact events (including headers, head impacts, and potential head injuries) from all 52 matches of the FIFA Futsal World Cup Lithuania 2021 were analyzed. There were 1065 head contact events with an incidence rate (IR) of 3014/1000 match hours (MH), including 839 headers (IR2376/1000MH). The most frequent head impact was upper-limb-to-head impacts (n = 106, IR300/1000MH) and the least frequent was head-to-head impacts (n = 8, IR 23/1000MH). There were 38 potential head injuries (IR108/1000MH) primarily from upper-limb-to-head impact. There was a statistically significant relationship between pitch location and type of head contact event (Cramer's V 0.18, p = < 0.001), with most events occurring outside the penalty areas (83.4%). Headers were the most common head contact event in the FIFA Futsal World Cup, with an IR similar to that reported in football. Although upper-limb-to-head impacts were the primary cause of potential head injuries in both futsal and football, head-to-head impacts were less common in futsal.