TRAINING BAN CALL COMING TO A HEAD ‘ Halt daily sessions to reduce dementia risk’
HEADING the ball daily in football training should be banned over dementia fears, say campaigners.
They want to outlaw intensive sessions of headers amid mounting evidence it causes the fatal brain- wasting disease.
The plea came a day after it was revealed World Cup winner Sir Bobby Charlton, 83, has dementia and less than a week after teammate Nobby Stiles died from Alzheimer’s.
Sports injury lawyer Ipek Tugcu said header training “often undertaken daily for hours” should be limited to “make huge strides in protecting player welfare”.
She asked: “Why does football continue to ignore the volumes of indisputable research, some commissioned by the FA, which identifies a clear link between football and neurodegenerative disease?
“They risk the welfare of players and leave themselves open to legal action for failing to meet their obligations as an employer.”
A study of professional footballers from 1900 to 1976 found they were three- and- a- half times more likely to die from dementia than the public.
Dawn Astle, daughter of ex- England forward Jeff Astle, who died aged 59 from dementia, said she hoped there would now be a “turning point”.
Sir Bobby’s brother Jack, 85, died in July after suffering from dementia. Younger brother Tommy said: “It is hard not to think it was linked to heading the ball. I had four uncles who played football who were hit by dementia.”
Three Lions World Cup winners Stiles, Martin Peters and Ray Wilson were all diagnosed with dementia in their sixties.