Amateurs and professionals sought by university study‘Physical and physiological differences could be important’A study into dementia in football is urging amateur and professional female players to volunteer to discover whether they could be more at r…
League Two players have exceeded figure 58 times this seasonWarning comes after PFA’s call for reduction of headersProfessional players are heading the ball in league matches with a frequency that is “hugely worrying”, according to a leading academic i…
Football ‘cannot carry on as it is’ says PFA’s Gordon TaylorWest Ham’s David Moyes suggests lighter ball for trainingThe Professional Footballers’ Association has called for an “urgent intervention” to reduce heading in training amid growing concerns s…
World Cup winner says ban would be a ‘sensible suggestion’Hurst has lost former teammates to dementia in recent yearsSir Geoff Hurst said he supports a ban on children heading footballs in the wake of sweeping dementia diagnoses and deaths among his 19…
Gary Chilton, whose father, Chris, scored a record 222 goals for Hull City, accuses the PFA of treating former players with dementia ‘like the elephant in the room’Ten days ago the Chilton family were at breaking point. Chris Chilton, 77, was diagnosed…
Our chronicle of some of the players affected by dementia includes several members of England’s 1966 World Cup squadJeff Astle (1942-2002) The former West Bromwich Albion and England forward died in January 2002, aged 59. Later that year an inquest rul…
Jarvis developed Alzheimer’s disease and died in December 2019‘Constant heading can’t have done him any good,’ says widowA former Wales international footballer who developed dementia had died after heading heavy leather balls during his career, an inq…
The Field study was commissioned by the FA and PFAModern players not at any less risk than predecessorsModern footballers could be at greater risk of neurodegenerative disease from head injuries than their predecessors, the academic leading a landmark …
Campaigners welcome ‘positive step’, but some working in children’s football question how enforceable it would bePeter Monk gave a wry response when asked if he thought children should be allowed to head a football from a young age.“To be honest, with …
Scottish Football Association finalising proposalsChildren under 12 could be banned from heading in trainingShare your experiencesChildren under the age of 12 could be banned from heading the ball in training in Scotland because of links between footba…
• £1m Scores project to screen ex-footballers’ brain health• Retired footballers aged over 50 being sought to take partResearch into the link between football and dementia is to be intensified by a £1m study that tests former players for early signs of…
A landmark study confirmed what many – including the family of West Brom and England legend Jeff Astle – long suspectedSo now we know. Revealed last week, the results of a landmark study into the relationship between football and brain damage confirmed…
• University of Glasgow researchers reveal results of major study• Four-fold risk of Alzheimer’s and motor neurone diseaseFormer professional footballers are three and a half times more likely to die of dementia than the general population, a landmark …
• University of Glasgow researchers reveal results of major study• Four-fold risk of Alzheimer’s and motor neurone diseaseFormer professional footballers are three and a half times more likely to die of dementia than the general population, a landmark …
• Glasgow-based doctors to compare former players with general population• Cases of Jeff Astle and England 1966 winners raised concerns about headingA Glasgow-based research team will investigate whether former footballers are more likely to suffer fro…
The brilliant former QPR player is suffering from Alzheimer’s, with friends and family pushing for a testimonial year at the club where he dazzled in the 1970s
The smile has not changed, as puckish as it always was; nor has the mischievous glint in Stanley Bowles’s sea-blue eyes. I remember it all like yesterday, when Bowles bedazzled football, weaving, winding through a humiliated defence yet again, in the hoops of Queens Park Rangers, atop the league, back in the 1970s.
Related: Footballers could be at risk of dementia from blows to the head, study suggests
• Players’ union says help it provides is ‘massive benefit’ to those in need
• Jeff Astle’s family among those to have criticised PFA’s inactivity
The Professional Footballers’ Association has defended its response to the growing number of former players now suffering from dementia, after criticism that the union, clubs and Football Association are not doing enough to help them.
John Bramhall, the PFA’s deputy chief executive, said that, when the union is made aware of a former player in need, it tries to provide support “wherever we can”. However the cost of full-time residential care, which some players with advanced dementia require, is beyond its resources from its funding, principally by the Premier League, and it is not clear that the game is responsible for providing such facilities.
Findings show potential link between repeated sub-concussive head impacts and degenerative disease, although no clear link to football established
Years of heading balls and colliding with other players could be damaging footballers’ brains and putting players at risk of developing dementia, scientists have suggested.
The claim comes from the researchers behind a small study which examined the brains of six footballers who developed dementia after long careers in the sport.
Documentary examines rise in injuries in rugby union and other sports that can cause brain damage in later life
Barry O’Driscoll, the former medical adviser to the International Rugby Board, is under no illusion about the defining moment of Ireland’s 13-13 draw with France in March last year. The decision to allow his nephew, the multi-capped centre Brian O’Driscoll, to return to the pitch after suffering concussion was an outrage, he said.
“If that had been allowed in the United States, during an American football match, then the officials involved would have been sacked,” he said.
O’Driscoll – who resigned from the IRB’s medical advisory board in 2012 in protest at its handling of the issues of concussion and brain injury – was speaking in the documentary, Head Games: The Global Concussion Crisis, which premiered in London last week. The American-made film focuses on what it describes as “a silent, global epidemic” of head injuries and traumas triggered by sports that are becoming increasingly robust and are leaving more and more former players suffering from dementia and the effects of brain damage in their middle years. These sports include American football, ice hockey – and rugby.
In the case of rugby union, the sport has become hardened and sharpened in the wake of it turning professional in the 1990s. Players today are bigger, stronger, faster and more able to hurt each other than in the past. Concussion was once treated as a joke – as is revealed by amateur video included in Head Games – but today has become an extremely worrying problem. Too many injuries to the head and a player is put at risk of succumbing to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in later life.
CTE was once known as dementia pugilistica or being punch drunk, a condition that affected boxers in their later years. But now doctors and neurologists are finding that it affects former players of many other sports where there are intense levels of contact and head injury. Five years ago the wider dangers of CTE were first revealed in the US where it was discovered that it was affecting former top-level American football players. At first the National Football League (NFL) rejected a link between head injuries suffered during games and the later onset of depression, dizzy spells and suicide attempts among former players. “It was a bit like the tobacco industry attempting to deny the link between smoking and cancer,” says Christopher Newinski, a former NFL player who is the author of the book Head Games on which the film is based.
However, a scientific paper published in 2009 revealed that former NFL players were 19 times more likely to suffer from early onset Alzheimer’s disease than the general public. Further studies have backed these conclusions and since then there has been far greater care taken about players who suffer head injuries during matches. In particular, they are not allowed back on pitch and are prevented from playing again for periods of up to several weeks.
But other sports – on both sides of the Atlantic – have been slower to catch up on the newly revealed dangers posed by head traumas, as the producers of Head Games reveal by focusing on ice hockey, Australian rules football, and rugby union. Former players describe bouts of concussion, disrupted sleep, changes in personality and loss of memory since ending their days as professional players. These stories are interspersed with clips of incidents of eye-watering violence as players are battered and pounded on the head – but then expected to continue playing after treatment.
As neurologist Professor Laura Balcer, of New York University, states on the film, it is clear from evidence that a person should not be allowed to suffer continued injuries to the head. “If you suffer concussion on three occasions, you should think of retiring,” she says.
The problem, which the film acknowledges, is that these sports all provide amateur players with a great deal of pleasure. The trick is to find a way of allowing people to continue enjoying a sport without risk of succumbing to dementia in later years. As former Canadian ice hockey star Keith Primeau admits: “It is a problem that young players simply do not want to know about.”
