Footie brain injury risk assessment rules ‘a shambles’
Top medic slams sport chiefs’ approach
ONE of Scotland’s top medics has slammed football chiefs handling of brain injury risk to players as a “shambles”.
Neuropathologist Professor Willie Stewart said football should follow rugby union’s example where doctors are given more time to assess players.
The news comes as a generation of Scottish football players have been blighted by dementia.
Former Dundee United player Frank Kopel died, aged 65, after battling dementia; Billy McNeill, who lifted the European Cup for Celtic in 1967, died two years ago, aged 79, after living with dementia; and Mike Sutton, a former Norwich player and dad of ex-Celtic star Chris, passed away in December after suffering from dementia.
Stewart, a leading campaigner on the need to protect players from the risk of concussion and brain disease, was speaking at a Department of Culture, Media and Sport session on head injuries in sport.
The Glasgow University academic said: “Football has a habit of, when it is forced to develop, it develops something unique to other sports.
“What football has introduced is a shambles in 2021.
“Rugby has made great developments, and that should be the model for other sports.
“The poor medics have no more time, opportunity or tools to assess players with a complex brain injury. They haven’t given them any more tools to do that.”
Former Scotland defender Gordon McQueen and Sir Bobby Charlton have also been diagnosed with dementia.
At the meeting on Tuesday, Stewart called for more money for research into the long-term effects of head impacts in sports and said other countries should follow the lead of Scotland, where concussion guidelines have been standardised across all sports.
Stewart’s work, called the FIELD study, found former players were 3.5 times more likely to die of neurodegenerative diseases than the general public.
Asked by MPs if the link between playing football and neurodegenerative disease had been firmly established, Stewart said: “The one common factor is head injury. To prove it beyond reasonable doubt is virtually impossible.
“The exposure to damage is in the 20s and the outcome is 30 to 40 years later. The gap is so long.” A second session of the parliamentary inquiry will be held later this month.