sport news CHRIS SUTTON: It's a disgrace that English football's stars suffering from ... trends now
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The lack of support from English football authorities for the families of ex-players — like mine — who have suffered, or are suffering, with neurodegenerative diseases is a complete and utter disgrace.
Action is needed now. But what the Football Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association are doing is just kicking the can down the road.
When I learned that the HEADING study, which has been supported by the FA, has been accused of a conflict of interest after its initial findings failed to find a strong link between heading a ball and the onset of diseases such as dementia, I was not in the least bit surprised.
To have medical researchers involved in such a study, but also serving on other bodies who are deciding whether dementia in football is acknowledged as an industrial disease is, in anyone’s view, crooked.
Researchers involved in these issues must be independent. The researchers have since said they declared their potential conflict of interest to a medical journal ahead of the paper’s publication. But why did they not do that straight away?
A new study does not support the link between heading a football and poorer cognitive function. Jeff Astle (pictured in 1966) died in 2002 aged 59 with early-onset dementia
Man United and England icon Sir Bobby Charlton was diagnosed with dementia before passing
Nobby Stiles suffered with dementia for a number of years before his death in 2020
Stiles and Charlton won the World Cup with England in 1966 and the European Cup with Manchester United two years later
All that does is support the view of many that football is trying to cover up the problem and delay meaningful action.
We are at the stage now where the
