Anger at delay over concussion substitutes
THE man who showed that footballers were three-and-a-half times more likely to die from conditions linked to brain or nerve damage has lambasted FIFA’s rule-making body for their failure to bring in concussion substitutes as soon as possible.
Dr Willie Stewart was aghast at the decision last week of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) not to make an instant change but merely to appoint experts ‘to identify possible options for in-game assessment and management of suspected concussion’ ahead of plans to trial concussion subs next season.
It also comes despite pressure from international federations for change, with US Soccer’s chief medical officer Dr George Chiampas, who led the US’s decision to ban heading in youth football in 2014, writing a letter to FIFA and IFAB in July to urge them to implement concussion subs.
Rugby union’s Premiership introduced concussion subs back in 2012 and Dr Stewart said: ‘If they [FIFA] really are only now, in 2019, thinking that concussion is something they should start talking about then I would question where they should be leading the game at all. For an organisation that states at the outset that welfare is the No1 priority, to suggest the No1 welfare issue of modern sport has only just come to their attention is unacceptable. To then suggest they are going to start from scratch, organising a group to spend the next year thinking about what might happen, putting in a trial in limited competition, which will then report back in a year or two which then then maybe filter down to management, is just ridiculous. It’s going back to where American football and rugby were a decade ago and starting again.’
Temporary concussion substitutes would allow a player to be assessed off the pitch for longer — 10 minutes instead of the current three — without teams being a player down.
‘They shouldn’t start from square one, they should start from where sport currently is and say this is best practice,’ added Stewart. ‘I can see why it might take a month or two if they had genuinely not appreciated that concussion was a problem, if they had just woken up from a coma and thought: “Oh, maybe we should think about concussion?”
‘They must have been thinking about this for years, so surely they had done some homework... before they get to 2019.’
Chiampas, who has urged IFAB to appoint him and Dr Stewart to their expert panel as the governing body continue to dither over the issue, told Sportsmail: ‘What I would ask of IFAB is when they put the committee together, all stakeholders should be there, federations and people like myself and Dr Stewart. That is critical. Five years ago, everyone thought the world was coming to an end. Now, no one is talking about children not being able to head the ball.’
It is understood several nations want to accelerate the introduction of concussion subs and UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has said he wants them ready as soon as possible. But following the IFAB decision it seems there is no hope of them at Euro 2020 and only limited trial runs to be introduced next season.