It’s probably a good thing that the 2018 World Cup isn’t going to be held in Germany.
Soccer officials in Germany, the newly crowned World Cup victor off its 1-0 overtime win over Argentina on Sunday, might want to consider their loyal fans and the potential negative effect the World cup matches pose.
Researchers at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich tracked data on emergency room visits in Germany during the 2006 FIFA World Cup (which was hosted in Germany). They wanted to see if there was an increase in cardiac emergencies—like heart attacks and irregular heartbeats—on days when the German team competed. They compared the medical records from 2006 against control years, where there were no World Cup games.
Six of the seven games involving the German team in the 2006 World Cup were associated with a substantial increase in the number of Germans showing up in the emergency room with heart problems.
Overall, the days where Germany competed in the 2006 FIFA World Cup saw 2.7 times more cardiovascular events than normal, according to the study. The effect is much more pronounced among men than women, with males experiencing 3.3 times more cardiovascular events than usual, compared to a risk 1.8 times higher in females.
The effect was most pronounced during the games that produced high levels of emotional stress, for example, when Germany beat Argentina in a penalty shoot-out.
“Apparently, of prime importance for triggering a stress-induced event is not the outcome of a game—a win or a loss—but rather the intense strain and excitement experienced during the viewing of a dramatic match, such as one with a penalty shoot-out,” the authors wrote.
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup was held in Germany from June 9 to July 9, 2006. It provided the opportunity to investigate the relation of emotional stress, experienced simultaneously in a predefined population during the soccer matches, and cardiovascular events, as prospectively assessed by experienced emergency medicine physicians.
The study sites were all in Bavaria: emergency services in 15 locations, including the city of Munich, the conurbation of Munich, and a rural area, as well as 6 air rescue services and 3 intensive care vehicles. The prospectively assessed study period was June 9 to July 9, 2006. The periods of May 1 to July 31 in 2005 and in 2003, as well as May 1 to June 8 and July 10 to July 31, 2006, comprised the control period. The year 2004 was excluded on the basis of possible effects of the European Soccer Championship in Portugal that year.
Cardiac events were analyzed for local German residents only, not for visitors from inside or outside Germany. Weather data were obtained from Germany’s national meteorological services. Air-pollution data were collected from the Environmental Authority of the State of Bavaria.
The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the Medical Faculty of the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität and the Bavarian Medical Association. A total of 4279 patients with acute cardiovascular events was included in the study.
The loyalty of soccer fans worldwide has been well documented.
“Our results show a strong and significant increase in the incidence of cardiovascular events (including the acute coronary syndrome and symptomatic cardiac arrhythmia), in a defined sample of the German population, in association with matches involving the German team during the FIFA World Cup held in Germany in 2006,” the authors wrote in the study. “In contrast, the average daily number of cardiac emergencies during soccer matches involving foreign teams was well within the range of values obtained during the control period. Since the incidence ratios were close to 1 for the days around the German matches, it is clear that watching an important soccer match, which can be associated with intense emotional stress, triggers the acute coronary syndrome and symptomatic cardiac arrhythmia.”