Prof Jiří Dvořák, MD

Dvořák is one of the world’s most renowned soccer medicine experts, having worked as FIFA’s Chief Medical Officer for over twenty years. In his years at FIFA, he mainly focused on spinal disorder prevention and sport injuries. He was instrumental in the genesis of a whole range of prevention programs, such as the 11+ warm-up for soccer players, which has reduced the incidence of players’ injuries by up to 50%.

Making use of the sport’s widespread popularity, he then co-founded the FIFA 11 for Health educational program for children, where well-known players, such as Lionel Messi or Carles Puyol, made appearance in educational videos. In 2016 over a million children from 51 countries took part in the project.

Together with Professor Manohar Panjabi from the Yale School of Medicine, Dvořák has helped expand the frontiers of knowledge in biomechanics of the spine, later assisting in the development of Intraoperative Neuromonitoring used in difficult spinal surgeries. He was involved in the founding of Eurospine (the spine society of Europe), the world’s largest organization of its kind.

He has also penned a number of scientific articles, published in international medical and scientific journals, while also working as senior editor at the British Journal of Sport Medicine.