A Bundesliga player is injured every 52 minutes of play, and the players were missing a total of 1,255 days in the 2023/2024 season. These are by far the highest values in top European football. The damage to the clubs is higher than ever before.
For some time now, there has been a discussion in Germany about the high level of sickness in companies and the suspicion that the pleasantly anonymous option of taking sick leave via telephone could play a role. A report went missing that the supposed people of the punctual and hard-working people seem to be losing these virtues, and not just in the factories and office floors. Germany is also the sick man of Europe on the football field.
At least this is the conclusion suggested by the “Men’s European Football Index”. It is part of a study published for the fourth time by the insurance broker Howden, which analyzes injury-related absences in European professional football and the resulting financial damage. First place in the negative ranking is the Bundesliga.
According to the study, every 52 minutes in the top German league a kicker falls to the ground and is then out for a while due to illness. This is by far the highest frequency of cases in top European football, where on average a professional is only carried off the pitch every 92 minutes. The study organizers counted 1,255 sick days in the 2023/2024 Bundesliga season; no other of the five top leagues examined reached a four-digit number.
German football fans like to gossip about the supposed stubbornness of the Italians and the loudness of the French. But these all just seem like football clichés.
In fact, every third player loss that occurred in Serie A, Ligue 1, Premier League, La Liga and Bundesliga occurred in German games. For the second time in a row, the local footballers are champions when it comes to sick leave. Fallen fruit is a German phenomenon.
Possible sporting causes are not examined in the study, nor is the question of whether you can simply get a sick note from Bayern Munich over the phone. Instead, the experts calculated the financial damage that clubs would suffer from the loss of their playing staff.
Major damage caused by sick leave in professional football
It is apparently higher than ever before. The authors calculated based on player salaries that injury-related absences cost the clubs a total of 732 million euros last season. The value has almost tripled within three years.
However, the Bundesliga is only in third place in the damage ranking with 125 million euros, behind the English and Spanish leagues, whose clubs paid 319 and 143 million euros respectively for sporting services not provided. The divergence between medical and monetary failure is easily explained.
In England and Spain the pay is better and the absence of an expensive player has a greater impact. The extent to which financial frustration could have contributed to the vulnerability of German professionals is one of the open questions in the study.
However, it provides clear evidence that high levels of sickness are also detrimental to productivity in professional football. Within the Bundesliga, Borussia Mönchengladbach was the only club to have a three-digit number of injury-related sick days. There were exactly a hundred in the season, which ended in a disappointing 13th place for the weakened Foal team.
Bayern had to accept 96 days of illness and a season without a title. Bayer Leverkusen, on the other hand, only received 36 sick notes from their professional kickers, the lowest number in the league. Coach Xabi Alonso will have generously overlooked the calculated loss costs of a mere 3.45 million euros. Ultimately, his extremely fit team won the championship trophy.
Steffen Fründt is a business correspondent for WELT and reports on topics Aviation, Sports industry and other industries.
