Prognosis of Health-Related Unavailability of Professional German Football Players

In this work, we statistically analyze publicly available data on the health-related absenteeism of German professional football players and, outgoing from this, develop a machine-learning model for a prognosis of the probability that a player will have a longer health problem during the current season. That prognosis is essential for German insurance companies, since a short illness or injury is covered by the health insurance, whereas a longer absenteeism (over six weeks) is covered by a special insurance. Insurance companies have to calculate the risk for that special case in order offer an appropriate insurance rate. Our model gives an assessment of the risk, and thus plays a vital role in the calculation of the insurance rate that can be offered to a professional football player.