Document is current

Article History

Accepted: 14 May 2026

First Online: 2 June 2026

Declarations

:

: Alan McCall is an Editorial Board Member of Sports Medicine and Guest Editor of the special collection, “Competing at the 2026 FIFA World Cup: Environmental Challenges, Health and Performance”. He was not involved in the editorial handling or decision making process for this article. Guilherme Passos-Ramos, Gary Lewin, Zoran Bahtijarević, Oscar Luis Celada, Nicklas Dietrich, Les Gelis, Ricard Pruna and Gregory Dupont have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this article.

: Formal ethical approval was not required for this article because it represents an invited editorial based on expert perspectives, informal interviews and experiential reflections from the author group and contributors. No identifiable personal or sensitive participant data were collected.

: All contributors provided informed consent for their perspectives and anonymised quotations to be included within the article.

: Not applicable.

: No datasets were generated or analysed during the current article.

: Not applicable.

: AM conceived the article concept and coordinated the project. AM, GPR, GL, ZB, OLC, ND, LG, RP and GD contributed experiential insights and perspectives through informal interviews and discussions. AM drafted the manuscript, and all authors contributed to interpretation, critical revision and approval of the final version.