Sport

FIFA must head the way in reducing risk of brain damage in football

Kenny Archer

Kenny Archer

Kenny is the deputy sports editor and a Liverpool FC fan.

The late Jack Charlton with his younger brother Bobby; the former died from dementia, the latter has been diagnosed with it.
The late Jack Charlton with his younger brother Bobby; the former died from dementia, the latter has been diagnosed with it. The late Jack Charlton with his younger brother Bobby; the former died from dementia, the latter has been diagnosed with it.

"If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he'd have put grass up there."

Brian Clough may have had his faults – including wrongly and hypocritically blaming the Hillsborough Stadium disaster on drunken fans - but he certainly knew how to get his teams playing attractive football.

For Clough that meant getting the ball down and passing it. To feet.

Not booting it long through the air.

Sure, his first European Cup Final triumph with Nottingham Forest resulted from a headed goal, Trevor Francis stooping to conquer at the back post against Malmo. The stupendous cross, of course, came from winger John Robertson, about whom Cloughie commented: “Give him a ball and a yard of grass and he became an artist.”

Mostly, though, Clough’s Forest teams passed the ball along the ground, even on sticky, muddy pitches, even when the club was fighting, in vain, against relegation.

There are many ways of playing football, and as long as they’re within the laws set out by Fifa, any way is fair game.

Despite my short stature, I loved heading the ball. Unforgettably, I guided a beauty in from around 15 yards out for the Irish News FC, a finish Paddy Heaney compared favourably to Ray Houghton’s famous winner for the Republic of Ireland against England at Euro ’88. But I digress.

Headed goals can be things of beauty.

Even craftsmen have used their head over the years – remember Lionel Messi soaring like a salmon to see off Manchester United in the Champions League Final at Wembley, or Trevor Brooking dipping even lower than his namesake Francis to win the FA Cup Final in 1980.

Yet the time has come for Fifa to seriously consider outlawing heading the ball.

Heading ain’t easy. It can be dangerous.

A pal of mine at university, who had only ever played rugby, decided to try soccer. Within minutes of his debut he was being taken to hospital with a badly broken nose, a self-inflicted wound caused by his heading the back of an opponent’s skull rather than the ball.

Even those who know how to play the game can suffer damage.

Often the problem is not a one-off injury but the cumulative effect of repetitive blows to the brain.

Watch any TV show like CSI or Silent Witness and you’ll have heard of ‘contrecoup’, whereby the brain rattles back and then forward within the skull.

That’s what happens when you head the ball.

Not severely, maybe, but repeatedly.

And the accumulated damage to the brain can lead to various cognitive problems or brain diseases.

Heading the ball is bad enough. Engaging in ‘aerial combat’, competing for the ball in the air against an opponent, often leads to clashes of skulls.

Rugby has its strict concussion protocols now after decades of brushing aside complaints from campaigners.

Soccer is still too blasé about concussion. Earlier this month its lawmakers opted not to permit a trial of temporary concussion substitutes despite facing calls to do so from the world players' union FIFPRO and the World Leagues Forum.

This week a new scientific study has shown that experiencing three or more concussions is linked to worsened brain function in later life.

People reporting three or more concussions - even mild ones - had significantly worse cognitive function, which got successively worse with each subsequent concussion after that, research led by teams at the University of Exeter and the University of Oxford found. Attention and completion of complex tasks were particularly affected.

The researchers have said the data indicates athletes suffering multiple concussions should be counselled about the risk of continuing to play sport.

The research, published in the Journal of Neurotrauma, included data from more than 15,000 UK-based participants of the online PROTECT study, aged between 50 and 90.

They reported the severity and frequency of concussions they had experienced throughout their lives and completed annual, computerised tests for brain function.

Lead investigator Dr Vanessa Raymont from the University of Oxford said: "We know that head injuries are a major risk factor for dementia and this large-scale study gives the greatest detail to date on a stark finding - the more times you injure your brain in life, the worse your brain function could be as you age.

"Our research indicates that people who have experienced three or more even mild episodes of concussion should be counselled on whether to continue high-risk activities.

"We should also encourage organisations operating in areas where head impact is more likely to consider how they can protect their athletes or employees.”

My nine-year-old son already indignantly tells me, when I whip delightful crosses into the box for him in the park, that “I’m not allowed to head the ball!”

Perhaps that’s for the best.

Increasingly, footballers who plied their trade in the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies are suffering from, and even dying from, dementia caused by concussive heading of thousands of footballs.

The family of the late West Bromwich Albion legend Jeff Astle campaign about this, as does pundit Chris Sutton.

The examples are not isolated; far from it.

Of the England team which won the World Cup in 1966, four have died suffering from dementia: Jack Charlton, Martin Peters, ‘Nobby’ Stiles, and Ray Wilson, while Bobby Charlton has been diagnosed with that condition.

Don’t be a header. Don’t be a ‘head-the-ball’.

Heading has to go the way of the back-pass to the goalkeeper and be consigned to history.

After all, it is called football, not headball.