Football (soccer)

Is football safe?

For nearly everyone who plays, yes. Death on a football pitch is rare and almost always comes from the heart rather than a collision. Our estimate for young players is about 0.1 to 0.2 micromortsMicromortA one-in-a-million chance of death. It lets you compare the risk of very different activities on one scale.More in the glossary per match or training session, a fraction of a day's skiing. The common cost is injury: an amateur player can expect a time-loss injury every 40 to 60 matches, mostly to the legs.

The question that has changed the game most in recent years is a slower one. Former professional players in Scotland died of neurodegenerative disease at several times the rate of other men, and heading the ball is the main suspect.

How footballers die

The big killer is sudden cardiac death. The English Football Association screened 11,168 academy players aged about 16 between 1996 and 2016 with an ECG and heart scan. Over 118,351 person-years of follow-up, 8 of them died suddenly from heart disease, 1 per 14,794 person-years. Six of the eight had normal screening results. In US college sport, men's soccer had one of the highest rates, 1 sudden cardiac death per 23,689 athlete-years in 2003 to 2013, behind basketball.

Those rates include deaths at rest. In US college athletes about half happened during exercise. Spread across the 200 to 300 matches and training sessions a committed young player has in a year, that gives our figure of about 0.1 to 0.2 micromortsMicromortA one-in-a-million chance of death. It lets you compare the risk of very different activities on one scale.More in the glossary per session. There is no good per-hour rate for adult recreational players. FIFA's worldwide registry of sudden cardiac arrests in football shows that coronary artery disease, a disease of older players, was the cause in about 36% to 43% of cases with a diagnosis.

Survival is the part a team can change. Only about a quarter of footballers in the FIFA registry survived their arrest. Players who get CPR within a minute and a defibrillator shock within three to five minutes have a far better chance.

The other notable cause of death has nothing to do with playing. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission knew of at least 21 deaths between 1979 and 1994 from movable goals tipping over, four in 1990 alone. Most victims were children climbing or swinging on the crossbar. Many goals were homemade and none were anchored.

How often footballers get injured

Injuries in football are frequent but usually not severe. The figures below count injuries that stop a player training or playing.

Level	Match injuries per 1,000 player-hours	Training injuries per 1,000 player-hours
Top European clubs (UEFA, 2001–2008)	27.5	4.1
Professional men, 46-study review	30.6	4.0
Amateur men, 46-study review	17.6	3.2

More than 80% of injuries are to the legs: hamstring and groin strains, ankle sprains and knee injuries. In the UEFA study the risk of injury rose as each half went on, which points to fatigue. Cruciate ligament ruptures are the injury players fear most, because they need surgery and months of rehabilitation.

Concussion is less common than in rugby or American football, but it happens in head clashes, falls and when the ball hits the head at close range. Most leagues now require a player with a suspected concussion to leave the pitch and not return that day.

Heading and long-term brain health

The FIELD study from the University of Glasgow compared 7,676 former Scottish professional footballers with 23,028 men from the general population matched for age and background. Neurodegenerative disease was the main cause of death in 1.7% of the players against 0.5% of the controls, about 3.5 times the risk after adjustment. For Alzheimer's disease the gap was about five-fold. The players were less likely to die of heart disease and lung cancer, and they lived longer up to age 70.

Goalkeepers, who rarely head the ball, were prescribed dementia drugs less often than outfield players, which points at heading. The study cannot show what a lifetime of recreational football does; it measured professionals with long careers.

Football associations have reacted. In England, deliberate heading is being phased out of grassroots matches for under-7s to under-11s, finishing with the under-11s in the 2026–27 season, and heading returns in the under-12 season. Professional clubs follow guidance that limits high-force heading in training.

How to play more safely

1. Warm up properly. A structured routine such as the FIFA 11+ cut injuries overall by about a third and severe injuries by almost half in a Norwegian trial with 1,892 teenage players.
2. Know the warning signs of heart trouble. Fainting during exercise, chest pain, unusual breathlessness or a family history of sudden death before 50 should be checked by a doctor before you keep playing.
3. Make sure your ground has a defibrillator and that people know where it is and how to start CPR.
4. Anchor every movable goal and keep children off crossbars and nets. Take portable goals down or chain them up after use.
5. Take concussion seriously. Leave the pitch after a suspected head injury and follow a graded return to play.
6. Train headers sparingly, with a properly inflated ball of the right size, and follow your association's age limits.
7. Wear shin guards and use boots that suit the surface.

How we scored it

Fatality risk (88) sits in the 0.1 to 1 micromortMicromortA one-in-a-million chance of death. It lets you compare the risk of very different activities on one scale.More in the glossary band, with some uncertainty for older recreational players. Injury risk (55) is the weakest factor because match injuries are common. Controllability (60) reflects that warm-ups, anchored goals and concussion rules work, while hidden heart disease does not show itself. Help is close on most pitches (88). Football sits above rugby and below running.