Injury burden differs considerably between single teams from German professional male football (soccer): surveillance of three consecutive seasons

Purpose The purpose of this study was to analyse unique injury data of the national statutory accident insurance for the two highest divisions in German male football (Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga) over three consecutive seasons regarding inter-season, inter-division and inter-team differences. Methods This was a prospective observational open cohort study over the seasons 2014/2015, 2015/2016 and 2016/2017. Every acute injury that was registered by clubs or physicians with the German statutory accident insurance for professional athletes (VBG) as part of occupational accident reporting and that led to time loss and/or to medical attention, was included. Results The complete sample consisted of 1449 players. The study covered 2663.5 player seasons with an observed match exposure of 69,058 h and a projected training exposure of 529,136 h. In total, 7493 injuries were included. The overall incidence rate was 12.5 (+/- 0.28) injuries per 1000 exposure hours, which translated into match and training rates of 47.0 (+/- 1.62) and 8.02 (+/- 0.24) injuries per 1000 h, respectively. Conclusion Findings of 2.7 injuries per player and season underline the need of effective preventive approaches. Higher injury incidences in seasons after international tournaments suggest an increasing risk of injury with increasing number of matches. However, large differences between the single teams from the same division indicate that a reduction in the injury burden is generally possible. Continuing the presented injury surveillance might be helpful to identify injury trends in the future and to evaluate the effectiveness of preventive approaches under real-life conditions.