Do you know the most common injuries for a referee?
As a football referee, you need to be mentally and physically strong to be a good leader on the pitch. Here you can read about the most common injuries in football referees.
As a football referee, you often run more than 10km during a match, with sprints, lateral movements and changes of direction. Running and strain-related injuries in the calves, feet and thighs are most common among football referees. The cause is often the inability to withstand match and training loads over time. Some injuries occur acutely, such as hamstring injuries. It is therefore important that referees are robust enough to withstand repeated sprints in matches. These injuries can be avoided by practicing injury prevention and doing a good warm-up before matches and training.
Typical injuries:
- Plantar fasciitis
- Achilles tendinopathy
- Fatigue fractures in the tibia and fibula
- Fatigue fractures in the ankle and foot
- Patellofemoral pain syndrome
- Hamstring strain
- Groin pain
Injuries in young/youth referees (related to growth and maturation):
- Schlatters and Sinding-Larsen syndrome
- Severs