Player injuries: the hidden cost of football, from the pitch to the club’s value

According to the specialized sports economics platform, in today’s professional football, a player is more than just a human resource for participating in matches. They are an integral part of a club’s capital. Clubs invest significant amounts in acquiring players, including transfer fees, wages, bonuses, and development and maintenance costs. In many cases, a player’s economic value in the transfer market also contributes to a club’s intangible assets. Consequently, when a player is injured, not only is a key technical asset removed from the team, but an economic asset is also taken out of the value production cycle for a period of time.

New evidence underscores this issue more seriously. A study published in October 2026 in the journal Frontiers in Public Health examined 12,948 injury cases involving 2,061 players from five major European leagues to investigate the relationship between injury and changes in players’ market value. The study’s data covered injury records from 2008 to August 2024.

The study’s key finding is that the duration of the injury period, rather than the type of injury, is associated with a decline in market value growth. Compared to injuries lasting one to 14 days, injuries lasting 31 to 90 days were associated with a 23.6 percentage point decline in market value change, while injuries lasting more than 90 days were associated with a 26.4 percentage point decline. However, the study emphasizes that these figures are statistical relationships and should not be interpreted as definitive cause-and-effect relationships. In a comparative analysis, injured players also had an average of 4.4% less value growth than similar non-injured players, with this gap reaching 26.9% for injuries lasting more than 90 days.

This finding has significant economic implications. Imagine a club has a player with a market value of 20 million euros. If a long-term injury causes his market value growth to be 26.9% less than that of a similar player, it’s not just about his absence from matches; the club’s economic capacity may also be affected at the time of sale or contract renewal. However, this example is only to illustrate the economic scale and does not mean that a player’s value decreases by exactly this amount in every case.

Another study on major European leagues also showed that a one percent increase in the likelihood of a severe injury—a injury that causes more than 28 days or five matches of absence—is associated with a 2.29 percent decline in a player’s market value. This study also emphasizes the importance of incorporating injury risk into clubs’ valuation models and financial planning.

But the cost of injury is not limited to a player’s market value. Data from Howden Insurance’s Men’s European Football Injury Index shows that in the 2024/25 season, the five major men’s European football leagues recorded a total of 4,456 injuries, with the cost of injured players’ wages to clubs estimated at 676.14 million euros. Over five seasons from 2020/21 to 2024/25, the number of injuries reached 22,596 cases, with associated costs totaling about 2.97 billion euros.

However, this index mainly measures the cost of player wages during the absence period and should not be equated with the “total economic loss of football.” The real cost can include reduced match revenue, the cost of recruiting a replacement player, treatment and rehabilitation costs, decline in athletic performance, loss of commercial income, and in some cases, a decline in transfer value.

A clear example of this economic chain can be seen in Spain’s La Liga. A study examining the 2018/19 season and 20 league clubs found that 270 muscle injuries caused 964 match absences, with the cost of wages associated with muscle injuries estimated at an average of 365,811 euros per month per club. For hamstring injuries, this figure was about 47,388 euros per month per club.

The issue can even go beyond wage costs. The same study showed that a team’s final position relative to its expected position can have a significant impact on television broadcast revenues. In the study sample, the difference in performance relative to expectations was associated with changes of about 45.2 million euros in broadcast revenue. Therefore, if multiple injuries lead to a decline in team performance, their economic impact can be indirect and much larger than the cost of the injured player’s wages.

On the other hand, the issue of prevention also has an economic dimension. The UEFA Elite Club Injury Study, which has been running in European football since 2001, has now examined more than 28,000 injuries in 96 clubs over 25 years. The project shows that regular monitoring of injuries and the use of medical and performance data can help clubs reduce risk and improve player management.

In addition, the pressure of the competition schedule is also important in this regard. FIFPRO’s Player Workload Monitoring report for the 2023/24 season showed that 54% of 1,500 monitored players experienced high or excessive workload; 31% were on a match list of 55 games or more, and 30% also faced at least six consecutive weeks with two or more games per week. These figures show that managing competition load and rest periods is not only a player health issue but also part of a club’s economic risk management.

In such circumstances, a professional club cannot define injury solely in the medical domain. The medical manager, coach, technical manager, financial manager, data analysis unit, and contract unit must be placed in a single player risk management chain.

When buying a player, attention should not only be paid to goals, assists, minutes played, and market value; injury history, number of days absent, recurrence of injury, age, type of contract, wages, and likelihood of player availability throughout the season should also be included in the decision-making model.

From this perspective, player insurance, presence-based contracts, training load monitoring, investment in sports medicine, and predictive injury analysis are no longer side costs; they are part of a club’s capital management.

Professional football is actually faced with a simple equation: a club that invests millions of euros to buy and pay a player’s wages must also have an economic plan to maintain the usability of this investment. If a player is injured, the club may simultaneously pay wages, not have the player available, spend money on a replacement, lose its athletic performance, and ultimately be left with an asset whose market value has also been under pressure.

Therefore, the economics of injury should become a serious component of football clubs’ financial governance; because in modern football, preventing injury is not only about preserving player health, but also about preserving the value of the club’s capital.

Mehdi Hajivand, Sports Economics Expert

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