Football performance chief warns clubs face flood of unproven recovery products
The Guardian
The short version
- Dr Claire-Marie Roberts says cryotherapy chambers and similar practices have little supporting evidence.
- She received up to 50 LinkedIn pitches a week while performance director at Coventry City.
- One vendor tried to sell canned oxygen after a basic chemistry question.
- She described the situation as bordering on exploitation.
Dr Claire-Marie Roberts says practices such as cryotherapy chambers lack solid evidence as vendors push gimmicks at clubs.
A leading performance director has warned that football clubs are being targeted with products and practices that lack scientific support, describing the trend as bordering on exploitation.
Dr Claire-Marie Roberts, who previously worked at Coventry City, said vendors routinely pitched devices, supplements and technologies promising major gains. At peak times she received as many as 50 LinkedIn messages a week offering such products.
One caller asked whether she knew how much oxygen was in the atmosphere before revealing a pitch for canned oxygen. Roberts noted the answer, 21%, is basic chemistry taught at school level.
Among the practices she cited as having little evidence behind them are cryotherapy chambers, which are marketed to clubs as recovery tools.
Roberts said her role was to optimize players' potential, which made her a frequent target for sellers of products claiming miraculous results.
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Written by the Matchday Live desk from reporting by The Guardian.
Read the original report at The Guardian ↗