gms | German Medical Science

Objectives: Football is the most popular sport worldwide and results in a high frequency of injuries in match and training situations. So far, mainly injuries in professional football have been investigated detailed, and the literature lacks data regarding injury epidemiology and current prevention data in amateur football tournaments.

Methods: This prospective cohort study investigated an international amateur football tournament, the UEFA Regions' Cup, which took place in 2019 in Germany. Injury epidemiology, current prevention strategies of the teams and the implementation of the UEFA concussion protocol were investigated in detail by means of standardised injury definitions and data samples for football (Fuller et al. 2006).

Results and Conclusion: 138 player of 8 teams participated in this study, while 39 players were excluded. Overall injury incidence was 12.5 per 1000 h total football exposure (match and training), 43.5 per 1000 h for match exposure. No injuries were registered during training. Injury prevalence was 14.1% per player during this tournament and 1.1 injuries per match were registered. The lower extremity was predominantly affected by injuries (71.4 %) and the majority of injuries (78.6 %) were non-severe injury types like contusions (50 %) and sprains (18.2 %). 2 head injuries, one contusion and one skin lesion, were handled by the guidelines of the UEFA concussion protocol. 44.4 % of the players indicated at least one previous injury before tournament, 45.3 % of them during the last two football seasons before start of the tournament. Injury prevention performance was included in all participating teams during the tournament by warm up or training strategies (100 %). During the warm-up program just 5 exercises of the FIFA 11+ program were detected by this investigation in participating teams to be done by more half of the teams. Running exercises were the most frequently performed exercises, while trunk muscle exercises were less represented (14.3 %).

This study presents for the first-time epidemiological injury and prevention data in international amateur football in the UEFA Regions Cup. Injury incidence was higher compared to injury reports of regular seasons in amateur football, but lower compared to other amateur football tournaments. Currently used prevention programs revealed trunk muscle exercises as often neglected.