The business of football
Injuries, the body and the real cost of breaking down.
In the late 1990s, creatine became the public face of Italian football's biggest doping scandal, even though it was never banned. Today UEFA recommends it and top clubs sign deals with supplement brands. The science barely changed in that time: what took longer was for the suspicion to lift.
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Frenkie de Jong avoided surgery and the conversation drifted toward his wages. Behind every serious injury lies a crossroads between what the evidence says, what the fixture list demands, and what suits the club's accounts.
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From dressing-room potions to blood tests: the sports supplement industry has changed more in ten years than in the previous forty, and the reason is not scientific but economic
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Elite football has spent two decades piling on sensors, GPS units and load algorithms. Hamstring injuries are more frequent than ever, and players are out for longer.
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Sports science has built leaner, more explosive athletes, not bigger ones. The fixture calendar grinds them down and nobody quite knows how to protect them.
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FIFA standardizes the emergency and lets the market set the price. First aid is pure socialism; the hospital bill is a lottery of passport and fine print.
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The cost of injuries at the 2026 World Cup is not borne by whoever organizes the calendar, but by clubs, leagues, players and insurers. FIFA decides the load and someone else picks up the tab.
