Now we’ll get to work on finding answers

IT’S astonishing to think that only four years ago we were struggling to convince people that there may be a link between head injury and dementia. All the work raising the profile of this important issue has paid off, and this research commissioned by the FA is truly ground-breaking. No other sport has done anything like this.

The FA and PFA have put the future of football into independent research and allowed us to assess the longterm impact of playing the game without any interference. They have no control over the course the work takes. It means that our work can be unbiased and thorough.

Should we come back with evidence that might need action, the game will respond. It’s a brave position to put themselves in and shows real commitment to the welfare of players.

People assume that brain injury in sport is a huge problem but work to answer these questions has still not been done.

With our study, FIELD, we hope to address this. Our research will involve looking into lifelong health in about 15,000 former footballers and comparing them to 45,000 members of the public. We’ll be looking at whether people are more likely to get mental health problems if they have played football, but also what the benefits of playing football are, and how does wider health in former footballers compare to nonplayers.

Only then can we make informed decisions. I’m grateful to the FA and PFA for taking the subject forward. I’m also grateful to

Sportsmail for the concussion campaign which has brought us to the position we are in today.