The scary collision between Kelley O'Hara (5) and the Netherlands' Lieke Martens in the Women's World Cup final was a high-profile head injury incident. The NWSL and American soccer are trying to address the problem. (Getty)

Soccer has a concussion problem.

The NFL may get the headlines because of its high-profile cases of the brain disease known as CTE, but head injuries are prevalent in soccer too, and the sport's protocols – for now, at least – continue to go against the advice of medical professionals. Players who are knocked out cold can still return to the field, and players hit in the head aren't fully evaluated for concussions, whether it's a low-tier club game or the World Cup.

But there is a growing sense of urgency from some corners of the sport to change that.

The U.S. Soccer Federation, which founded the NWSL and has managed the league since its inception, considered the possibility of the NWSL piloting a temporary substitution rule for players suspected of suffering a concussion, sources tell Yahoo Sports. The federation discussed informing FIFA, the global governing body of soccer, and its rulemaking arm, IFAB, that the NWSL would be willing to run trials on new rules for head injuries.

Those discussions never made it far enough to reach NWSL owners though, in part because FIFA and IFAB would first need to signal that they are open to considering a substantive change to the laws of the game. Owners contacted by Yahoo Sports said they would've supported the pilot program.

U.S. Soccer and the American soccer leagues – MLS, the NWSL and USL – co-signed a letter earlier this year urging FIFA and IFAB to update the current concussion protocol, which determines how in-game head injuries are handled. The letter proposed extending the amount of time that a referee is able to stop play while a player is evaluated on the field, as well as looking at rule changes to allow for an additional substitution if a player is suspected of having a concussion.

[ Follow Yahoo Soccer on Twitter and Facebook ]

FIFA's nine-member medical committee, which includes U.S. Soccer chief doctor George Chiampas, asked last month that IFAB add the topic to the agenda for its annual meeting where new rules are approved. The medical committee recommended that the current allotment of three minutes to evaluate suspected concussions be extended to a mandatory 10 minutes.

“At U.S. Soccer, we’ve been really focused on what we can do to make sure we are a leader in the area of concussion safety, which is why we launched the Recognize to Recover program a few years ago,” Chiampas said in a statement, referring to the federation's education campaign around head injuries. “We’re also in constant conversations with the FIFA medical committee to determine how else we can make consistent progress in this area.”

There are many options FIFA could consider.

Some advocates want a temporary substitute, which would give doctors and players enough time to evaluate the injury before deciding to use a permanent substitution. Others advocate for a head injury sub where it wouldn't cost the team a substitution to take off a player who shows signs of a concussion. There are other creative possibilities, like having the opposing team take a player off so each team is down a player during the concussion test to keep the competition level.

“I'm fine trying anything but it's got to be the correct rule,” North Carolina Courage coach Paul Reilly told Yahoo Sports. “I don’t know what the correct rule is though – I've not the foggiest idea what you'd do. It's the same with VAR, they tried it in the Women's World Cup and it didn't work so well, but it will eventually be something we have to have in our league.”

Whatever the changes look like, they are clearly needed – especially in the NWSL. Some studies show concussions have a greater impact on women, and female soccer players suffer concussions at a higher rate than their male counterparts.

Just this season alone, the NWSL has had its share of concussion scares and missteps, too.

View photos Rose Lavelle's head injury in an August game between the Washington Spirit and Portland Thorns is one of the most notable head injury incidents this season. (Getty) More

Story continues