Football's Concussion Problem Will End Up In Court

UEFA has now become the first of football’s continental confederations to address the sport’s concussion problem. Better late than never, one might say. Late it certainly is, but whether it represents any improvement in the sport’s attitude is questionable.

- Paul Gardener

UEFA is “seeking research proposals to study the risk of heading the ball among youth players in European football”. That statement exposes the limitation of UEFA’s interest only in youth players. Nor does the statement include the word “concussion”.

If you want to be picky, you can separate long-term brain damage from the immediate effects of concussion. But the two, in football, are closely related. Studying one without the other would fail to make the key point that ball-to-head contact is no longer seen as the only problem. Head-to-head and head-to-elbow clashes are now considered to be, at least, of equal importance in causing concussions.

Much more contentious is the fact that UEFA does not intend to take any action to reduce potential concussion injuries. It proposes only to set up studies of the problem, then to report on the results of those studies.

In its statement, UEFA is acknowledging the possibility that football has a concussion problem. From the legal angle, that is a pretty risky position to take – especially when the sport plans no action. In practice, though, I doubt that the admission makes much difference to football’s position, which is already shaky. After all, should football ever try to use the “we weren’t aware” defence, it would be laughed out of court.