We, the Editor and Publisher of the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, have retracted the following article: Title: Adequate Interval between Matches in Elite Female Soccer Players. Authors: Trevor C. Chen, Tai-Ying Chou and Kazunori Nosaka. DOI:
According to the press release from the Department of Education of Taiwan, the study raises grave concerns regarding
- The lack of voluntary informed consent,
- Excessive physical burden and harm imposed on the participants,
- Coercion of a vulnerable population (student subjects under academic pressure),
- Consequential damage to the participant's educational and athletic trajectory,
- The taking of coerced blood samples by unlicensed staff (contrary to the existing laws of the country).
Such circumstances constitute a serious violation of the **Declaration of Helsinki**, and breach of the journal's publishing policies, and the editor has therefore lost confidence in the validity or integrity of the article.
This also directly contravenes the ethical standards established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In accordance with COPE's Retraction Guidelines, a retraction may be warranted in cases involving unethical research practices. As verifying the validity of published work is core to the integrity of the scholarly record, we retract the article. The authors listed in this publication have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity, and the COPE guidelines on retractions. The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as "Retracted".