PASSING THE BUCK

SNP’s ‘underwhelming’ effort to tackle dementia in football

THE Scottish Government was last night criticised for their ‘underwhelming’ response to the growing fears over dementia’s links to football.

Holyrood finally held a debate yesterday — brought by Labour MSP Michael Marra — on the issue, which Sportsmail has been campaigning for over the last 12 months.

One of the key issues raised was for dementia in footballers to be classified as an industrial injury. However, while admitting more needs to be done, Maree Todd, the minister for public health and sport, stopped short of supporting its inclusion as a workplace injury, claiming the power to do so was reserved to Westminster.

Instead, she said the issue would be ‘considered’ when powers over the Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit are transferred to the Scottish

Parliament and ministers would consider ‘how best to meet people’s needs’.

She described the issue of brain injuries among former sportsmen and women as

being both ‘important’ and ‘complicated’. Todd said ministers were ‘committed to increasing our knowledge of the possible links between neurodegenerative disease, including dementia, and sports-related injury’. She said: ‘Unfortunately, the industrial injuries disablement Benefit is still currently delivered by the UK Government, and i understand that they do not currently consider dementia as an industrial injury. ‘it will be delivered by the Scottish Government in the future. And when it is delivered by the Scottish Government, that will be after a full public consultation on how best to meet people’s needs.’ Former Celtic and england striker Chris Sutton had told Sportsmail yesterday that he hoped Scotland would take the lead on the issue but, for the time being at least, it appears that opportunity has been spurned. Marra responded: ‘To say the Government response was underwhelming would be very kind. Looks like this is the first whistle rather than the final whistle. Together, we’ll win this campaign to honour our heroes and support their families.’ during the debate, Marra had demanded SnP ministers take responsibility for industrial injuries disablement Benefits, adding: ‘This is not — we must be clear — a debate about concussion. The medical condition here comes from repeated brain trauma from the repeated heading of a football on the pitch and in training. ‘The striker Chris Sutton — who lost his beloved footballer father to dementia — estimates his own repetitive trauma amounting to 70,000 times heading the ball across his career. Chris has backed this campaign and is calling on Scotland to show leadership.’ research has already shown that former footballers have higher dementia rates than the general population. researchers at Glasgow University assessed the medical records of almost 7,700 men who played professional football in Scotland between 1900 and 1976 — finding that they were approximately three-and-ahalf times more likely to die from neurodegenerative disease than the general public.