Footballers put at risk by dementia research delays
The football authorities have been warned that they risk neglecting former professionals between the ages of 30 and 60 following a delay on decisions over crucial dementia research funding.
The Football Association and Professional Footballers’ Association asked for new research proposals into the dementia link in February, but The Daily Telegraph can disclose decisions are now pending discussions with other football stakeholders, including the Premier League, in an attempt to also coordinate priorities with Fifa and Uefa.
The original advert included a closing date for applications to the FA in April “with a view to commencement of the selected study in the 2021-22 academic year”, but there is now no specific timeline on when any future projects will begin.
Dr Willie Stewart, the Glasgow neuropathologist who proved football’s dementia link, wants football to specifically prioritise studies that could help recently retired players who have not yet developed dementia, but are at a hugely elevated risk.
The issue has been thrust back into the spotlight this week after Denis Law, the former Manchester United and Scotland striker, revealed that he, like hundreds of other former players, has been diagnosed with dementia.
The FA and the PFA part-funded Stewart’s research, which showed that former outfield players are almost four times more likely to develop dementia, with particularly high rates among defenders and no evidence of any decline after leather footballs were replaced by modern synthetic balls.
Stewart’s team at the University of Glasgow now want heading minimised, but also an immediate focus on former players to examine if their risk of developing such a devastating neurological disease might be reduced.
“We are now thinking about
footballers and athletes’ lives in three phases,” Stewart said. “The first phase, when they are still playing, we have a solution there. It is entirely preventable. Get rid of unnecessary head impacts.
“The biggest challenge, which we are in danger of overlooking, is former athletes aged 30 to 60. These are people who participated in the sport, who have been exposed to risk, but who are not yet at an age where dementia might have developed. We need to be doing something active for that group through targeted research, while also providing support and, where needed, interventions to try to reduce or rebalance risk. Unfortunately, these athletes are in danger of being neglected by sport. Instead, there seems to be a focus on studies in young, actively participating athletes which have little, if any, relevance to issues around mid and later life brain health and dementia risk.”
Of the final phase, Stewart and his team have been working with families of players who have developed dementia and examining their brains after death.