Premier League risks backlash over permanent concussion substitutes
The Premier League is expected to become the first competition to trial permanent concussion substitutes, even though head injury experts have described the proposals as “pointless” and “a half-measure”.
The new system, which will be voted on at a meeting of Premier League shareholders tomorrow and is likely to be introduced next week, will mean that players who suffer a suspected concussion are permanently replaced by an additional substitute. At present, players should already come off if they suffer a suspected concussion, but their replacement counts towards the regular tally of substitutes.
However, the move will disappoint leading neurologists, players’ unions and brain injury charities who have been campaigning for temporary substitutes, as are allowed in other contact sports such as rugby union, so doctors have at least 10 minutes to assess a player before making a final decision.
They believe that it is safer for doctors to make a decision with added time, away from the field of play. Brain injury charity Headway also wants that decision to rest with an independent medic.
The Telegraph launched its “Tackle Football’s Dementia Scandal” campaign in 2016 and has long called for football to follow other contact sports by introducing temjohn porary substitutes. The International Football Association Board, however, approved trials for permanent replacements after Fifa, the Football Association and the Premier League advocated that system.
Under the Premier League version, teams could make a maximum of two additional permanent substitutes following a head injury, with opponents allowed to make a substitution at the same time.
Fifa is running its own version of the permanent substitute at the Fifa
Club World Cup next month, although this will allow only one additional replacement.
Chris Nowinski, executive director of the Concussion Legacy Foundation at Boston University, said that anything short of a temporary replacement, which would allow medics a longer assessment period, was “still pointlessly dangerous”.
Dr Willie Stewart, the Glasgow neuropathologist who proved football’s dementia link, has called the new proposals “hopeless”.
The FA is expected to follow the Premier League and introduce the same version of permanent concussubstitutes ahead of the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Premier League clubs are also expected to vote tomorrow on a plan if the season needs to be curtailed due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is expected that a majority will want at least three-quarters of the games complete (29 out of 38) before a points-per-game system could be used to decide positions.
Premier League players and clubs will also again be warned not to become complacent following a halving of positive Covid-19 tests during the past seven days. The now-biweekly testing of players, which took place between Monday and Sunday last week, returned 16 new cases from almost 2,000 players and staff following respectively 40 and 36 new cases over the previous fortnight.
The trend of a peak in infections immediately after Christmas followed by a levelling off and then a drop, appears consistent with wider society and coincides with the Premier League’s attempt to reinforce tougher new protocols.
Although the Government has not been minded to include elite sport in the wider national lockdown, concerns peaked during the FA Cup third-round weekend, when players openly flouted guidelines with their celebrations.
The FA is monitoring the situation and would have ultimate jurisdiction over any on-field breaches.