Lack of temporary concussion substitutes ‘risks player safety’

Temporary concussion substitutes must be added to current football head injury trials as “player health and safety has been jeopardised”, player unions have warned.

Permanent concussion substitutes were introduced midway through the season, but world union Fifpro and the Professional Footballers’ Association say temporary replacements would have “better protected players”.

They have written to the International Football Association Board calling for the scope of the trials to be extended from June. Their letter highlights the cases of West Ham’s Issa Diop and Sheffield United’s George Baldock. “These underline our concern that permanent substitutions do not give medical teams the appropriate environment to assess a player with a potentially serious head injury,” it stated.

Permanent concussion substitutions were introduced in the Premier League from Feb 6 and are also being trialled in the FA Cup, the Women’s Super League, the Women’s Championship and the Women’s FA Cup.

“Medical teams can be presented with a situation where a globally broadcast match is on hold, awaiting their assessment,” the player unions said. “They have to make a potentially game-altering decision in a multi-billion-pound industry. Since the beginning of Ifab’s permanent concussion substitute trial, we have seen several incidents where the new laws of the game have fallen short of their objective and jeopardised player health and safety.”

A Fifpro poll found 83 per cent of 96 medics surveyed in the English, Belgian and French top flights felt temporary concussion substitutes should form part of the protocol.

Professor Willie Stewart, one of the UK’S leading brain injury experts, described football’s concussion protocols as “a shambles” when he addressed a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee hearing last month.

He led a 2019 University of Glasgow study which found that professional footballers were three and a half times more likely to die of neurodegenerative diseases than the general population.