Pioneering doctor to run study after calling the authorities to account
Willie Stewart has been pivotal to our campaign to discover the truth, reports Ben Rumsby
When Alan Shearer allowed himself to be filmed undergoing tests for dementia for a documentary aired 12 days ago, the man he trusted to correctly diagnose him was Dr Willie Stewart.
Stewart – who will lead the three-year study announced yesterday – has been the go-to British expert on concussion in sport and its associated brain injuries since becoming the first person to identify chronic traumatic encephalopathy in a UK footballer when he examined Jeff Astle’s brain in 2014, 12 years after the West Bromwich Albion and England striker’s death.
A consultant neuropathologist at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University hospital and associate professor at the University of Glasgow and the University of Pennsylvania, Stewart also sits on the Football Association’s Expert Panel in Concussion and World Rugby’s Independent Concussion Advisory Group.
And the outspoken Scot has repeatedly demonstrated his independence from those governing bodies by being highly critical about both football and rugby’s approach to dealing with head injuries.
While calling for the commissioning of wide-ranging research into the potential link between playing football and dementia during The Daily Telegraph’s own campaign for more to be done to address the issue, Stewart declared the Professional Footballers’ Association – which he said employed people of “phenomenal salaries” – could and should have acted “a decade or more ago”.
He also prompted a complaint to the FA by Chelsea in 2015, branding the club’s treatment of a nasty head injury “completely unacceptable”.
Stewart has been equally critical of rugby’s concussion protocols, earlier this year declaring them “not fit for purpose”. He has warned that rugby was becoming “virtually unplayable” due to the number of injuries per match. He also said he feared the sport was not “learning the lessons” over its failure to properly protect players.
Four years earlier, Stewart announced he believed he had discovered the first confirmed case of early onset dementia caused by playing rugby.