Irish Examiner view: Sport’s obligations to dementia victims

Experts believe the incidence of impairment due to concussion in former football players is under-estimated

Jeff Astle, a striker for West Bromwich Albion, who died from a degenerative brain disease caused by the constant heading of a wet, leather football throughout his 20-year professional soccer career.

The suggestion that England’s Football Association (FA) will not contribute to a fund for the welfare of former players suffering from dementia is an unseemly argument tarnishing a sport that has a number of other reputational challenges.

The dispute between the FA, which has been funding research into the connection between heading a football and brain trauma, and the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) centres on what is suspected to be the hidden cost of
future care, which could run into many millions.

The PFA has identified 303 players who developed dementia, with 147 still alive. However, experts believe the incidence of impairment is under-estimated.

The moving 2020 programme , the story of the former Ireland manager’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, increased public awareness. The film was originally intended to tell the story of how Charlton came to be so respected and loved in his adopted country but the directors soon realised that Charlton’s dementia had progressed too far for him to talk about the past. So they produced a profoundly affecting documentary about the impact of the illness.

Many other big names in the sport are acknowledged sufferers, including Jack’s brother Bobby and their fellow World Cup winners Nobby Stiles, Ray Wilson, and Martin Peters.

Within the game there is a growing demand that dementia be classified as an industrial disease — as recommended by a coroner at the inquest into the death, 20 years ago, of former West Bromwich Albion striker Jeff Astle, aged 59. The autopsy found he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, also known as ‘boxer’s brain’, which is caused by repeated blows to the head.

The link between concussion and brain injury is not a revelatory discovery and progress towards effective insurance and compensation and more sophisticated in-game protocols remains achingly slow. This needs to change, and soon.