Injury Prevalence, Types and Mechanisms in Football: A Media-based Approach

The increase in demand for football players to perform at their best during training and competition results in the escalation of a varying number of football-related injuries. Media reports provide readily as well as timely information on injury-related issues that could assist the stakeholders in decision making before and after a competition. Although, many attempts have been made to quantify football-related injuries in many countries via media, however, little is known on its prevalence, types and mechanisms as reported in Nigerian media. The present study employed a content analysis technique through which 94 football-related news articles from Nigerian newspapers were examined and the most frequently reported injuries are identified. It is demonstrated from the chi-square analysis that the occurrences of football-related injuries are distributed amongst players regardless of their positional role in the game [χ2(60) = 41.401; p>0.05]. Moreover, the prevalence in the mechanisms of injuries are disseminated across injury types [χ2(30) = 32.203; p>0.05]. A total of 94 different injuries are reported with knee, ankle, and thigh as the most affected locations. The findings further revealed that strikers have a higher rate of injury occurrences with a total of 52% as compared to midfielders 20%, defenders 14%, and goalkeepers 12% whilst 2% are unidentified. Many of the injuries reported are either fresh 48% or recurrent 50% with only 2% recovery. The present findings could be useful to stakeholders in projecting injury-related problems in football which could guide aappropriate action.