8
View
comments
World governing body FIFA have known about the suspected link between football and brain damage since 1984 — when an article appeared in their own magazine highlighting the dangers of heading the ball.
Sportsmail can reveal how the authorities in charge of the global game have been aware of a potentially deadly problem for decades. Published in the official FIFA Magazine, the two-page article discusses the possibility of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — the condition now plaguing former footballers — and states ‘the only protection is to decrease the number of headings’.
It even highlights examples of players whose deaths were said to have been linked to playing football. Campaigners have now accused FIFA of ignoring the issue in front of them.
Chris Sutton, whose professional career started with Norwich City in 1991, said: ‘It’s astonishing. A major problem was flagged, in their own magazine, and yet what was done to protect players like me? I headed the ball day in, day out. We all did. And yet here, in black and white and in 1984, the dangers were being highlighted.
‘It makes me wonder how many people from my generation will end up suffering? And how many of those were preventable, had action been taken. I’ve got a lump in my throat thinking about that.’
FIFA knew of football's dangerous brain damage link back in 1984, an article has revealed
The article — titled ‘How Dangerous Is Heading?’ — was submitted to FIFA’s medical committee at a meeting held on October 26, 1984.
It states it was written by Vojin N Smodlaka, professor for rehabilitation medicine at the State University of New York College of Medicine in Brooklyn.
‘Headache is the most common symptom that occurs after heading the ball,’ readers are told. ‘It may last for days. Undoubtedly, the reason for this headache is that a concussion has been sustained.’ It then cites a 1925 incident in which a 20-year-old player developed dizziness and a headache during a game before losing consciousness and dying from ‘subdural hematoma’ — a bleed on the brain.
An article published in FIFA's own magazine discusses the dangers of CTE from heading
The article was
