Financial Costs of Injuries in the English Premier League

The world of professional sports requires athletes to perform at high intensities and at the limit of their physical capacity. Therefore, professional athletes often suffer from injuries of various types and different severities. In individual sports, the effects injuries have on the athlete’s performance, success and financial profit are implicit. In contrast, the effect of a single injury or a single player’s absence in team sports is much harder to quantify both from the performance perspective and the financial perspective. In this study, we attempted to estimate the effect of injuries on the performance of football teams from the English Premier League and the financial implications deriving from this effect. The analysis that will be presented is based on data regarding results, injuries and estimations of players` financial value from the seasons 12/13 to 16/17. We found a statistically significant relationship (p = 0.001) between the number of days out due to injuries a team suffers from during a season and the point/place difference between their actual and expected finish in the premier league table (according to overall player value). Moreover, we can interpolate that approximately 136 days due to injury cause a team one league point and that approximately 271 days out due to injury cost a team one place in the table. These formulas enable us to conclude that an English Premier League team loses an average of 45 million pounds due to injury-related causes, based on wage bills and prize money sums.