Pre-season injuries plague soccer players: researchers

Pre-season injuries plague professional footballers and although most are minor they still put the players out of action for about three weeks, researchers said on Tuesday.

Four out of 10 professional footballers are injured before the season even starts, which increases the odds of further injury during the official season. Injuries cost English professional football clubs 75 million pounds ($117.6 million) during the 1999-2000 season.

"There are a high number of injuries during the pre-season months compared with a similar time period during the season," said Caroline Woods of the medical and exercise department at The Football Association.

In research reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Woods and her colleagues conducted a detailed analysis of pre-season injuries during two English football seasons.

Seventeen percent of the total number of injuries, which were usually minor or slight, occurred before the season mostly in the thigh, knee and ankle and resulted in an average of 22.3 missed days.

Muscle strains were the most common ailment and younger players were more likely to have a pre-season injury than their older, more experienced team mates.

The scientists advised teams to adopt risk management policies, similar to those used in industry, to prevent injuries. They also called for more research into how to prevent the most common injuries.