Incidence of sports injuries and their association with training characteristics of football referees in Türkiye

Objective: There is an abundant number of studies that investigated injuries of football players. However, injuries of football referees remains under-researched. This cohort study aims to determine the sports injuries of Turkish football referees and also to investigate the relationship between the injury and demographic characteristics and the referees’training patterns. Materials and Methods: At the onset of the season, a questionnaire involving personal characteristics, training content, and injury characteristics was administered to the referees. Then, the referees kept injury diaries throughout the season. Injury logs were analyzed at the end of the season. Results: From 335 referees who were approached, a total of 286 completed the study. During the 2018-2019 football season, 134 injuries were reported from 94 (32.9%) referees, with more injuries during training than matches (n=114 vs 20; 85.1% vs 14.9%). Injuries were classified as acute injuries (n=36; 26.9%) and chronic/overuse injuries (n=86; 64.2%), while 12 (9%) injuries did not receive any clinical diagnosis. The most common injured body part was the lower leg (n=40, 29.9%). A significant difference was found between injured and non-injured referees for their ages, years of refereeing, the leagues they refereed, and the intensity of running training. Logistic regression analysis revealed that age groups affected the injury status with a variance of 12.4% with an odds ratio of 70.3% and %95 CI. The risk of injury for the referees in the 22-25 age group was 73% lower than those in the 30-year-old age group. Conclusions: Our findings present the demographic profile and training characteristics of Turkish referees, and highlights the possible role of age, league level, years of refereeing and training planning in injury prevention.