Heading ball ‘does women more harm’

HEADING a football may harm a woman’s brain more than a man’s, researchers have found.

Scans showed women footballers had five times as much tissue damage as men, with more brain areas suffering harm.

Both groups had made an average of just under 500 headers in a year.

Prof Michael Lipton, of New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said: “Women seem more likely than men to suffer trauma.”

The number of women in England who play every week soared from 29,900 in 2014 to 1.84 million now.

Prof Lipton added: “It’s wise to identify risk factors to prevent further damage.”