The English FA, which administers the Women's Super League and Championship - competitions which have seen 12 ACL injuries already this season - are launching a wide ranging audit of ACL injuries in their top two tiers.

Women athletes are eight times more likely to suffer an ACL injury than men, and the audit plans to uncover more information about the causes, studying the demands on female athletes, whether deficient eating or menstrual cycles make play a part, and also various rehabilitation techniques.

"Given there are different resources at different clubs, even in the WSL, there’s such a disparity between some of the clubs in terms of the resources that they have," advisory group professor, Mark De Ste Croix, told The Telegraph.

“Those clubs that are closely aligned to their male teams tend to have more resources.

"Lots of them don’t have ­full-time sports scientists who are daily monitoring GPS data so they can look at the loading on the players, not ­overdoing it or on the flip side, being under prepared or not ready.”

The study could have wide reaching ramifications across the women's sport world, with various competitions in Australia suffering similar issues.

The AFLW, in particular, has put a lot of resources into reducing ACL injuries but still suffers a horrible annual toll.

“We’re probably sure that fatigue plays a role in the likelihood of ACL injuries, but how we go about monitoring that is difficult," De Ste Croix continued.

“One of the ways to reduce the risk of an ACL is relatively simple: getting the girls to land correctly or to cut and rotate well. We call it ‘general movement competency’ and this is influenced by growth and maturation in both boys and girls.

"However, changes that occur to both hip width and things such as increased circulating oestrogen form part of a complex puzzle that contributes to girls being classed as high-risk athletes.”