SPECIAL REPORT
New dementia link means ALL sport must change
THE man behind the ground-breaking research that is likely to transform football and sport around the world has called on international sports federations to back further work to understand more precisely the link between contact sport and brain diseases such as dementia.
Dr Willie Stewart, whose work over two decades had led to the introduction of concussion protocols and better management of head injuries, also paid tribute to The Mail on Sunday for the campaign this newspaper started in 2013, without which he says he would not have been able to present his work this week.
The research, which studied data from 7,676 male ex-professional footballers in Scotland, found they were three-and-a-half times more likely to die from conditions linked to brain or nerve damage, such as Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease.
While emphasising that the benefits of sports far outweigh the risks, he is calling for immediate action from sporting authorities, including:
The introduction of concussion substitutes in football, with Dr Stewart condemning football’s lawmakers for still worrying about potential gamesmanship;
Uniform protocol on coaching heading through Europe, particularly at youth level. As an FA advisor, he says that there is no longer any benefit from heading as part of youth football;
More specific research to track current and recently retired footballers to see how their brain develops as they age;
The introduction of a national database to collate cause of death from brain diseases for sportsmen and women so it can be treated like any other industrial injury.
‘Modern football and modern sport must change now,’ said Dr Stewart, who is a consultant neuropathologist and associate professor at the University of Glasgow and the University of Pennsylvania.
‘Until Monday there just wasn’t good, hard evidence that there was anything sport needed to act upon. There were really powerful anecdotes and personal stories but they were that... anecdotes. All the sports organisations could say, from a legal and science point of view, that you haven’t shown me any evidence yet.’
Dr Stewart paid tribute to the MoS campaign, started in 2013 by sports editor Alison Kervin and rugby reporter Sam Peters, which called for this research, which was funded by the FA and the Professional Footballers’ Association.
‘Bits of the jigsaw came together and The Mail
on Sunday’s campaign was a very big bit of the jigsaw,’ he said. ‘When there was a national campaign and a major publication was prepared to make it a focus of their attention and keep coming back to it, again and again and again, with fresh stories, I think that undoubtedly was a force for change. I don’t think we would be at the point of doing the research and publishing it this year (without our campaign).’
The most dramatic change at grassroots could be the phasing out of heading in youth football. It is banned in the USA for kids aged 10 and under and the FA advise against repeated heading practice in youth football. With Dr Stewart being a new member of the FA’s medical advisory team, it seems those guidelines could be tightened up.
He added: ‘If you look at the number of times kids who are under 14 or under 12 head the ball in the game, it’s hardly ever. It’s a rare event. So if it is something that happens once every few matches, or once a match, then why bother? Why not take it out all together?’
He says that common guidelines should be introduced across UEFA federations and that adult pro footballers should also be subject to training protocols, such as limiting heading training to once a week. Concussion substitutes, whereby a temporary sub comes on for 10 minutes while a player is better assessed, are being considered by the game’s lawmakers, the International Football Association Board, but Dr Stewart condemned their statement this week that said ‘any solutions would have to take account of both player welfare and the need to ensure sporting fairness.’
Dr Stewart said: ‘That’s just ridiculous. They should focus on welfare of the player and fit the game around it.’ UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has backed Dr Stewart’s stance.
It was announced this week that Dr Stewart will head up a team at Glasgow University and Penn University to investigate chronic traumatic encephalopathy and neurodegenerative disease. And he says extensive research is required for 30 years.
‘I’m calling now for a surveillance project to be set up so we treat this as a proper industrial disease. When an individual is diagnosed or dies of dementia and has been a footballer or rugby player, it should be notified centrally to an independent body.
‘This happens for CJD and helped to identify and react to variant CJD [commonly known as Mad Cow disease] when it emerged in the mid-90s. When you look at dementia in footballers against variant CJD, the numbers are considerably higher.’