Rule makers set for concussion substitutes vote
Ifab faces landmark decision in Belfast today Stop gambling on health, urges leading doctor
Football’s governing bodies have been warned they will be gambling with player health and vulnerable to legal action if, as expected, they fail to introduce a system of concussion substitutes that would give medical staff more time to assess potential brain injuries.
The treatment of head injuries is on the agenda at today’s annual general meeting of the International Football Association Board in Belfast, with football’s rule makers likely to trial only the limited change of giving teams additional permanent substitutions for suspected concussions rather than temporary replacements.
This solution, which does not appear to increase the assessment time for club doctors, has already been branded “hopeless” by the Glasgow doctor who last year proved the link between football and dementia. Fifa president Gianni Infantino, however, has indicated that he would prefer to still have only permanent substitutes and this idea could now be trialled at the Olympic Games in Japan as well as next season’s Premier League.
“We have to take it very seriously,” Infantino said. “We need to protect the health of the player above anything else. If he can go out and the team can bring someone else in, I think that makes sense. Maybe it is important we have trials before next season. We have the Olympic Games, for example.”
Asked whether that meant permanent or temporary substitutes, Infantino said that it needed to be discussed and trialled, but that he “personally believed more on permanent than temporary”.
This stance is also supported by the Premier League but opposed by many brain injury campaigners, including global players’ union Fifpro, who say that it is imperative for football to follow sports such as rugby and give medical personnel at least 10 minutes so that players who have not immediately displayed clear symptoms do not continue and risk more serious damage.
Dr Willie Stewart, whose landmark research found that former footballers were respectively five and four times more likely to die of Alzheimer’s disease and motor neurone disease, said that the key issue
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was “the limitations of the on-field assessment”.
On-field tests are currently supposed to be completed within three minutes and there were a series of incidents across Europe last year when players were cleared to continue before then coming off after they had subsequently shown potential concussion symptoms.
Stewart believes that an extra permanent substitute would offer no substantive improvement for the injured player, as clubs are already supposed to remove anyone displaying symptoms. “A way of saying ‘we’re changing something’ while, in essence, changing nothing,” he said.
Ipek Tugcu, an associate in the brain injury team at solicitors Bolt Burdon Kemp, also said that football would remain at “square one” if Ifab did not give club medical staff more time with the sort of temporary replacements used in rugby.
“I can’t see that footballers will be any better protected from head injuries,” she said. “It is only going to be a matter of time before legal action is brought, unless significant and meaningful changes are made to genuinely reduce the occurrence of head injuries and to appropriately address injuries once they’ve occurred. The footballing world is otherwise just gambling with people’s lives, as well as leaving themselves vulnerable to legal action.”
Video assistant referees will also be considered at today’s meeting and, although Ifab may reiterate that they should be used only for “clear and obvious” incidents, no major changes are expected either to this system or the handball and offside rules.
Infantino, however, did indicate that he would support Arsene Wenger’s suggestion of changing the offside law so that there is daylight between the defending and attacking players.
“Personally, I’m in favour of discussing a new way of looking at the offside rule,” he said. “We have to look at whether we can make the offside rule clearer by having light in between. But it’s for discussion. There will be no decision.”
Infantino was also adamant that additional leeway of 10cm – something the Premier League and Uefa were expected to propose – would not solve the controversies. “VAR is not the problem, it’s to look at how we can make the [offside] rule,” he said. “VAR is here to stay, as far as Fifa is concerned.” Infantino also defended the new handball law, which punishes unintentional as well as intentional handball in a goalscoring situation. “Some agree, some disagree. It’s much clearer than it was before,” he said.