OBJECTIVES: To determine the severity of soccer injuries among professional players, and to identify predictors of soccer injuries' severity among professional soccer teams.

METHODS: In this Cross-sectional study twelve premier league and division I soccer teams in Jordan including one-hundred and fifty-two professional soccer players were recruited at the end of soccer season 2019. Players and teams' medical staff provided demographic information, previous soccer injuries, current soccer injury profile, and playing surface, in addition, players indicated time-loss from soccer participation since the injury to determine the severity of injuries (mild:4-7, moderate:8-28, severe:>28 days). Players' sex, previous soccer injuries, playing factors (team division and playing surfaces), and mechanism of injury were entered into a multinomial regression model to identify predictors of soccer injuries' severity, with severe injury as the reference group.

RESULTS: Sixty-eight players (44.73%) sustained mild: 30.8% (n=21), moderate:33.8% (n=23) or severe: 35.4% (n=24) soccer injuries. Player's sex (Men-vs-Women: OR:0.2, R²:9.9%), mechanism of injury (Contact-vs-Non-contact: OR:3.12, R²:6.9%), playing surfaces (Synthetic-vs-Natural grass: OR:1.91, R²:13.8%), and having previous injury (Yes-vs-No: OR:0.13, R²:11.9%) were significant predictors of severity of soccer injuries (moderate versus sever injuries).

CONCLUSIONS: Players' sex, mechanism of injury, playing surfaces, and having previous soccer injury predicted the severity of soccer injuries. Men players and those with previous soccer injuries were less likely to have moderate versus severe injuries. While players with contact injuries and who were injured on the synthetic surface were more likely to have moderate versus severe injuries. Our findings might be taken into consideration to implement a personalized rehabilitation program, reduce the severity of soccer injuries, and develop tailored injury preventive strategies. This better understanding of the risk factors for the soccer injuries will subsequently help cut down the medical expenses spent on medical and rehabilitation treatment and the team's finical burden due to soccer injuries.