Pseudoscience Duping Football in Trend 'Bordering on Exploitation', Warns Leading Performance Director
Professional football is increasingly being deceived by unproven pseudoscience, according to elite performance director Dr Claire-Marie Roberts, who warned that the sport's obsession with quick fixes and miracle recovery hacks is "bordering on exploitation."
Roberts, who spent nine years working at the Premier League and two at Coventry City before joining Formula One outfit McLaren as director of human performance, revealed she routinely faced outlandish sales pitches—including salesmen offering "oxygen in a can"—as well as dozens of weekly messages peddling unverified gadgets and supplements.
“It’s the science-practice gap, which is widening in my experience,” Roberts explained. “I think it’s getting much worse. There’s so much sparkly marketing behind all these things. It’s bordering on exploitation. They’re taking a population that is very susceptible to: ‘How can I hack my performance advantage? How can I shortcut my preparation and recovery?’ Which I don’t think is a great starting point.”
Scrutiny Over Cryotherapy and Ice Baths
Among the widespread rituals questioned by Roberts are cryotherapy chambers and ice baths. While whole-body cryotherapy has become standard at top training grounds, and players like Harry Kane have frequently turned to ice baths following matches, Roberts noted the scientific foundation remains minimal at best and potentially counterproductive.
“Most clubs have got cryotherapy chambers – most people cannot articulate to you why they use them, because there’s no evidence for them apart from a very slim piece of work that says it might help prevent dementia,” Roberts said. “There’s very sketchy evidence on cryotherapy. There’s a recent suggestion that cryotherapy might blunt muscular adaptation. If you’re using it for recovery, sleep and nutrition are your best recovery modalities. No amount of putting anybody in a whole-body cryotherapy chamber is going to help them recover more if those two things aren’t taken care of.”
K-Tape and Pill-Popping Habits
Roberts also criticised the widespread use of kinesiology tape (k-tape), a popular accessory worn by high-profile stars including Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, and David Beckham over the years.
“There’s no evidence kinesiology tape has any impact on injury prevention or performance-related outcomes,” she noted. “It gives you a bit of proprioception – maybe you feel like someone has done something – but in any environment I’ve worked in you’d never see anyone wearing k-tape. It’s a big white elephant... K-tape is a placebo.”
She expressed similar concerns about the multibillion-pound supplement industry infiltrating the sport, where players frequently consume pills without understanding their functional necessity rather than focusing on fundamental nutrition and sleep.
“You’ve got people popping pills not really asking what they’re for. It should always be needs-based,” Roberts said. “No amount of supplementation will improve a bad diet, but people think it will. We don’t do enough of the basics and think we can shortcut and hack everything.”
The 'Anti-Science' Culture
Roberts believes the pressure cooker of modern football fosters a culture that blindly copies elite sides rather than relying on empirical evidence, leaving the game vulnerable to commercial gimmicks.
“Football is more susceptible to it than any other sport I’ve experienced first-hand. I think because the stakes are higher,” she said. “Because England or Manchester City or Chelsea who have all the resources under the sun have got this, there’s a misappropriation of confidence and understanding of the scientific basis or evidence. It’s powerful in driving behaviour, but it’s driving the wrong behaviour.”
“Football in general is very anti-intellectual and it has been for a long time. There are a few clubs that do it well, but the majority don’t. The game is definitely anti-science. There’s a reason for that. There isn’t a critical mass of people that are applying critical thought to situations.”