The football community is banding together to advocate for player safety, sending a letter to the International Football Association Board (IFAB) today demanding they introduce temporary concussion substitutes to protect athletes’ brains and allow medical professionals to conduct proper evaluations.
Over 100 individuals and organisations – including England legend Alan Shearer, FIFPRO’s General Secretary Jonas Baer-Hoffmann, the PFA, non-profits, scientists, and other former players – have backed the calls.
While the Premier League became the first in the world to introduce concussion substitutes, in response to growing evidence between football and neurodegenerative disease, the need for these to be made temporary rather than permanent substitutions has continually been stressed.
Currently, medical professionals are forced to evaluate athletes on the field in as few as three minutes, making a comprehensive clinical evaluation impossible.
Medical and brain injury specialists have said these rules potentially put athletes’ health and lives at risk, if they are returning to play with concussion.
“The current protocols for concussion in football are not working,” says Dr Adam J. White, executive director of the Concussion Legacy Foundation UK.
“Therefore, we need to do everything we can to support medical professionals to make the best decisions for player safety, that means allowing them the time and space to conduct robust clinical assessments away from the field of play.
“Temporary concussion subs are the only way that can happen.”
“Put simply, the current rules by IFAB are not working and players are being put at risk. This is completely unacceptable,” says Dawn Astle, founder of the Jeff Astle Foundation.
“Too often we are seeing players assessed for a complex brain injury on the field of play, with the noise and intensity of a football stadium and continuing the game only for them to be replaced later on.
“This demonstrates that the current guidelines are failing to prioritise player safety. Change is long overdue.”
PFA chief executive Maheta Molango said: “The current rules set by IFAB are simply not working.
“Players are being put at serious risk. When determining the laws of the game, player safety and welfare have to be the top priorities.
“Medical teams are being given an impossible task. Within the pressurised environment of elite football, we have seen frequent incidents of players returning to play with a potential brain injury, only to be removed shortly afterwards once symptoms visibly worsen.
“As the representative voice of professional players in England, we have been clear that we want to see the immediate introduction of temporary concussion substitutes.”
“It is vital that we better protect footballers from the dangers of continuing to play after sustaining a concussion – particularly those playing at grass roots level,” said Peter McCabe, CEO of brain injury charity Headway.
“The introduction of temporary concussion substitutes should have happened years ago, and any further delays are simply unacceptable.”
