This represents a huge challenge for the sport of football. The present stance of the authorities can be summarised in one word: prevarication. Tony Cascarino was a striker who played for Ireland in two World Cups. Writing in the Times, Cascarino is scathing about the guidance:
The new guidance on heading in training, issued by the leading bodies in English football, makes no sense. The thinking appears to be that doing less heading in training means fewer impacts and therefore less risk.
First, if there is an issue with heading, why allow it to continue at all? Second, heading is a skill and it requires practice and plenty of repetition. Reducing how much a player can practise reduces their technical ability and means they might suffer more damage because they head the ball poorly in matches.
The issue is damage to the brain which is a sponge in the skeleton that takes impact regularly.
I'm not a medical expert but the evidence of this and other studies appears irrefutable. There is only one question to be answered: is heading so fundamental to football that we are prepared to see footballers suffer brain damage? The answer surely is: no. I frequently get carried away when watching football and my frustration at a team's inability to create scoring opportunities; I will shout something like "get the ball in the box for him to head it". You can hear fans at matches encouraging their teams to do the same, so we definitely need educating.
If you watch teams such as Barcelona and Manchester City playing the beautiful game, they do so without the traditional big, brawny strikers who can score headed goals. Last season's Champions League winners and Premier League winners did so without such players. I remember the late Brian Clough, winner of two European Cups with unfashionable Nottingham Forest, saying "If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he'd have put grass up there". The clue is in the name: football is meant to be played with the feet. I remember a sickening heading collision last season between players of Arsenal and Wolverhampton Wanderers and that made me think seriously about my attitude towards this issue for the first time.
UEFA - the governing body for European football - has guidance for young people playing football. It includes recommendations and advice on specific aspects such as ball size and pressure, the need for neck-strengthening exercises, and detection of potential concussion symptoms. FIFA - the world governing body - is, as far as I can discover, silent on the issue.
I believe that it is inevitable that, within ten to twenty years, heading will be banned in the laws of the game, exactly as handling the ball is. The authorities would do well to take the kind of initiatives used by climate change activists, by setting a fixed end date to achieve the change and establishing realistic waypoints. Something like the following:
- by 2040, the laws of football will be amended to ban heading the ball, punishable in the same way as handling the ball already is
- by 2035, headed 'goals' will not count as goals scored
- by 2030, free kicks and corners in a football match must be played along the ground
- by 2025, all football goal-scoring statistics and honours (such as 'Golden Boots') will exclude headed goals
- by 2023 the laws of the game will include a definition of 'head' in the laws, as there are currently of hands and arms
1966 World Cup hero Nobby Stiles died last year after suffering from dementia. His son John, a former footballer himself, is campaigning with the Head for Change charity who helped organise a match at Spennymoor Town a week ago, in which heading was banned. A noble cause and well intended, but high level influence is needed to effect change.
There will be those that believe that this will destroy football as we know it - which it will and, in my opinion, for the better - and others who believe such a timetable is too long. The debate should be started and it should not be left to charities to do so.
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