Injuries have cost elite European clubs €3.45 billion over the last five years

Martin Macdonald

• Updated: 19 Dec 2025 06:23 CST
• 3 min read

Nieuws

A new study has highlighted the astonishing cost of injuries to European clubs in the top five leagues over the last five years.

Footballers, particularly at elite European clubs, are paid handsomely and thus whenever they are unavailable to play due to injury or fitness issues, clubs are not seeing a return in their investment which leads to lost capital.

The Men's European Football Injury Index, created by Howden, has ran for the past five years and the recently published 2025 edition details injuries that have occurred over the last five seasons.

The report states that injuries have cost €3.45 billion in that time period. Up until the report was published, 22,596 injuries were taken into account.

The Premier League is the league that pays the most in wages and so is the most penalised whenever a player can't feature due to injury. The English top-flight accounts for around 24% of that aforementioned cost.

Younger players have been injured the most as players under 21 played 26% more matches in the 2024/25 season compared to 2020/21.

Club World Cup impact

The introduction of the expanded Club World Cup received criticism, mostly from players, who were upset at having yet more games added to their schedule which was already at breaking point.

Chelsea went on to win the tournament, but at what cost?

Howden's report indicates that between the start of the World Cup and October of 2025, they reported 23 new injuries and these have undoubtedly impacted the Blues in the first half of the 2025/26 Premier League season.

League by League

Even though the Premier League has footed the biggest portion of that €3.45bn bill, the most injuries actually occur in the German Bundesliga. In the last five years, 6,177 "physical" problems stopped players from featuring for their clubs.

The Premier League is in second with 5,367 injuries and LaLiga in third with 4,171 injuries.

The Howden report states:

"Outside of the Premier League, only three clubs - Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid - registered injury costs of over €40m (£34.48m) in a single season, in last five years.

"Whilst Bundesliga clubs have consistently recorded the highest rates of injury across each season, data shows that they come at a notably lower cost – an average of €115.95m (£99.96m) per season.

"Over the five years, Real Madrid incurred a total injury cost of €168.76m (£145.48m), compared to rival Barcelona’s €122.99m (£106.03m) cost.

"Paris Saint-Germain is the only French men’s team to record above-average injury figures in each of the last five seasons - incurring a total of nearly 300 injuries during this period.

"In Italy, Juventus and AC Milan were the two teams to incur above average injury counts – with the former unable to win the domestic title in any of the previous five years."

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