Brain expert wants to ban under 18s heading footballs
Heading a football should be banned for those under the age of 18 years and should be restricted in the professional game, according to one of the world’s leading experts on brain injuries.
Dr Bennet Omalu discovered the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) which is caused by repeated head trauma. His life and work was the inspiration for the Hollywood film, Concussion, starring Will Smith.
Dr Omalu told the BBC that heading a football causes such repeated trauma to the head and should be restricted in the professional game and banned for those playing under the age of 18.
It does not make sense to control an object travelling at a high velocity with your head. I believe, eventually, at the professional level we need to restrict heading of the ball. It is dangerous. No child under the age of 18 should be heading the ball in soccer.
“Kids under the age of 12 to 14 should play a less contact form of soccer which we should develop for them. Kids between 12 and 18 can play but should not head the ball. I know this is difficult for many people but science evolves. We change with time. Society changes. It is time for us to change some of our ways,” he said.
Dr Omalu pointed to Italian research published this month that he said shows that just one episode of brain trauma increases your risk of suffering permanent brain damage.”
The issue of brain trauma associated with heading a football has become more prevalent in recent years.
One of the most notable cases involved England and West Brom star Jeff Astle who died in 2012 at 59. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s for almost a decade after he retired. An inquest into his death ruled he died due to brain trauma caused by heading heavy leather balls.
However, a paediatric consultant at the Bons Secours Hospital in Cork, Dr Niamh Lynch who is an expert in concussion, took issue with Dr Omalu’s reading of the research coming from Italy.
“I have great respect for Dr Omalu and the research that he has done. With all due respect to Dr Omalu he is a pathologist who looks at the brains of people who are deceased and then looks back at their past and puts the pieces together. He has done tremendous work in the area of CTE.
"He quotes a paper saying that a single episode of brain trauma can lead to permanent neurocognitive impairment. He doesn’t say what kind of brain trauma that was. Was it somebody who was in intensive care on a ventilator or was it somebody who headed the ball?”
“I think if we were to recognise that there was significant neurocognitive impairment among large groups of people who play sport then we would have realised this quite a while ago. It’s important to take everything in context.
"He’s starting with the hypotheses and going to the conclusion without really looking at any of the evidence in the middle,” she said.
