58% of Players Treated on Pitch during World Cup were not actually injured
If it seemed to you like a lot of players were faking injuries at the 2006 World Cup your intuition was correct. FIFA’s chief medical officer, Professor Jiri Dvorak, presented a report today that detailed the extent of actual injuries versus the fake kind.
“Fifty-eight per cent of the players who were treated on the pitch during the 2006 World Cup eventually turned out not to be injured,” confirmed FIFA in a statement.
Only 58%? I would have thought it would have been higher.
The number of injuries fell from 2.7 per match in 2002 to 2.3 per match in 2006. That means there was a total of 145 injuries in the 64 matches a decline that some attribute to better officiating.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter said: “I am very satisfied with the referees’ performances at the 2006 World Cup. They achieved more than their counterparts in Korea/Japan in 2002.”
If blowing calls, handing out cards like a drug dealer on a street corner and affecting the outcomes of games is a measurement of success, than His Seppness is entirely correct.
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Comments
By Catherine | October 24th, 2006 at 11:43 am 
Can you get us a list of the 58% who were not injured?
I’m curious.
Posted from 
Canada
By mike | October 25th, 2006 at 5:33 am This statistic is not shocking. Most injuries on the pitch are just slight knocks to the knee, ankle or whatever. These types of injuries sting like hell for about 5 minutes but you can usually just walk them off. I think in most cases they use the stretchers to get the player off the pitch quicker rather than have him limp off and waste time.
Posted from Canada
By Pedro P | October 26th, 2006 at 2:53 am 58% of the injuries weren’t really injuries, for the past decades… Some goals weren’t really scored with the feet and some penalties weren’t really penalties… This is what I’d call part fo the game…
The refs were better in 2006 than in 2002. What’s that suposed to mean…? Has any WC given us good and fair refereeing…? 2002 was probably the lowest of the lowest, in the sense that it couldn’t have been more obvious – nobody even bothered to try and disguise it… 2006 also showed us some nice tricks (I remember, e.g., the penalty awarded to Italy on the 91st minute) and was crowned by the Zidane award… I mean, FIFA absolutelly hates Maradona, cos he’s a bad example to the kids, etc, etc, etc and stings Argentina on any possible occasion. And then they go and give the award to Zidane, AFTER the headblow incident… It’s all about coherence and a bit of that old hypocrisy…
Posted from 
Netherlands
By b.p. | October 30th, 2006 at 9:36 am i agree with mike about temporary pain, been there myself. fifa does need to take the problem of taking falls head-on. i believe the majority of these falls were attempts to get a chance at some set plays
Posted from 
United States
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