UEFA: Simone Grana on Medical Committee in Nyon

The Vice President of the FSGC, Dr Simone Grana, took part in the work of the UEFA Medical Committee, which met in Nyon on the morning of 15 November. After picking up the threads from the previous session, participants opened discussion on last season’s anti-doping activities (2022-23), also addressing upcoming training programmes for the staff in charge. The next item on the agenda concerned the report drawn up by the medical unit. Among the topics on the table was the campaign launched by UEFA on cardio-pulmonary resuscitation: "Get trained, save lives", aimed at over 100,000 fans and designed to provide basic CPR skills that could prove crucial for emergency interventions in the stands and, more generally, in fan zones, ahead of UEFA EURO 2024 in Germany. The project is supported and endorsed by the European Resuscitation Council. The session continued with items relating to the third FDEP cycle (Football Doctor Education Programme), one of the specialist courses offered by the UEFA Academy, which provides an academic qualification in the field. The key issue of head injuries introduced in-depth discussions on women’s health and on medical research and innovation, ranging from Erasmus+ open programmes through to research on injury cases and sudden cardiac arrest. Work on the Medical Regulations – including an analysis of the main amendments introduced and the section devoted to concussion, a core focus of the UEFA Medical Committee in recent times – opened the final discussions, centred on UEFA’s major events, namely EURO 2024 and WEURO 2025, which share several elements in their respective medical and anti-doping plans. With regard to UEFA EURO 2024 in Germany, the committee revisited the roll-out of the CPR campaign aimed at fans, and discussed the risks associated with high temperatures in the German summer – for which UEFA is already drafting guidelines and strategies to safeguard the wellbeing and health of the many fans expected to attend. Looking ahead to the following year’s Women’s EURO, the discussion also covered the 2025 Medical Symposium. The meeting closed with the always valuable recap of the minimum medical standards to be guaranteed at the venue, in order to protect spectators. Before adjourning until the next meeting of the UEFA Medical Committee, Committee Chairman Tim Meyer thanked his colleagues – both those present in Nyon and those connected remotely from their home countries – for the fruitful exchanges that took place.

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