British journal of sports medicine
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Comparative Study
An examination of the frequency and severity of injuries and incidents at three levels of professional football.
To assess the risk of injury to professional footballers during European international and English Premier and First Division league matches. ⋯ The results equate to a total of 808 players per season from the estimated 2600 players in the four English professional football leagues sustaining a match injury that caused them to miss at least one game. The large number of underlying "non-injury" incidents is identified as the reason for this level of injury rather than a higher ratio of "injury" to "non-injury" incidents in professional football compared with other occupations.