Ex-Fax star joins legal action bid
A GROUP of ex-players are set to sue the Rugby Football League for negligence.
Bobbie Goulding, Paul Highton and Jason Roach are part of a group of 10 former professionals involved in the action, over what they say was a failure by the governing body to protect them from the risks of concussion during their careers.
Those three players have all been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive brain condition thought to be caused by repeated blows to the head.
In a letter being sent to the RFL, the players allege that, given the significant risk of serious or permanent brain damage caused by concussions, the governing body “owed them, as individual professional players, a duty to take reasonable care for their safety by establishing and implementing rules in reington spect of the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of actual or suspected concussive and subconcussive injuries”.
Another member of the group is Michael Edwards, who played for Oldham, Leigh and St Helens amongst others, and former Halifax and Workplayer Ryan MacDonald, now aged 43.
The group is being represented by Richard Boardman of Rylands Law. They have also launched an action on behalf of former rugby union players against World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union and the Welsh Rugby Union.
Mr Boardman is representing a wider group of more than 50 players, ranging in age from their 20s to their 50s, many of whom are showing symptoms associated with neurological complications.
The action mirrors a similar issue in football, where several former players have suffered brain damage and dementia from repeatedly heading the ball, leading to calls for heading to be restricted, or even banned, in the sport.
The action mirrors a similar issue in football