Football fails again on concussion

With the image of bewildered German midfielder Christoph Kramer floundering his way from the Maracanã pitch during the World Cup final fresh in the memory, the FA emerged from English football’s corridors of power this week with chest puffed-out, trumpeting the arrival of its latest concussion guidelines.

Only three words spring to mind upon reaching the conclusion of the document bandied around the UK national media on Tuesday: is that it?

It is twelve years since the death of ex-West Bromwich Albion striker Jeff Astle, who died from debilitating early-onset dementia as a result of football-related head injuries.

It is nine months since goalkeeper Hugo Lloris played on post-knockout during a Premier League match. It is five more since Labour MP Chris Bryant held a parliamentary roundtable meeting in the halls of Westminster.

Is this watery bumf really the best the FA can muster?

Conceived chiefly by sports medics rather than brain specialists, not only does the piece provide little practical information regarding the signs and symptoms of concussion, and fail to make the crucial distinction between the treatment of children and that of professional athletes, it is punctuated by several baffling inaccuracies.

The guidelines propose elite footballers undergo ‘baseline psychometric testing at the start of each season’. To clarify, psychometric tests are the sort of assessment many of us may expect to face during job interviews. They gauge aptitude and personality. And in this instance, they are as relevant to acute head injury as the weather is to Scottish barbecues.

Following the advice doled out by FA ‘experts’, it is possible to clear concussed children – whose developing brains render them most susceptible to serious damage from head injury – to return to full-contact sport in six days.

That is a worrying precedent to set given the propensity among adolescents for prolonged post-concussive symptoms and even mass brain swelling and death from a condition known as second impact syndrome.

When this spree of hopeless errors and dangerous omissions was pointed out, the press release was swiftly amended, but the corresponding and more detailed guidance offered in the annual FA Handbook – distributed to all member clubs from Arsenal to Aldershot Town – remained unaltered.

Consider the neglect, nay absurdity, of such a gargantuan sporting association that clearly neither understands this grave player welfare issue nor proof reads and fact-checks the publications it rolls out.

One eminent researcher remarked that we ought to credit the body for at least acknowledging the problem at long last. I respectfully disagree. The guidelines are a start, yes.

But as starts go, they are on a par with the great Darren Lockyer’s infamous Kangaroos debut.

‘Lacking intellectual rigour’ is the kindest assessment I can offer. Having felt the wrath of public, media and finally government over numerous gross concussion mismanagements in the Premier League, the FA have cobbled together a hastily-scrawled missive designed to appease the masses, but only likely to rile those who have campaigned for comprehensive floor-to-ceiling change.

Indeed, these guidelines are notably a regression on their previous incarnation, which suggested players suspected of brain injury be assessed by performing sprints, squats and sit-ups on the touchline.

I find that the whole debacle is frankly an insult to the Astle family – the death of the former striker in 2002 handed football and the FA an early warning, and an opportunity to nip concussion in the bud.

Instead, they commissioned an ill-thought-out ten-year study that was eventually ditched, and even in 2014 continue to fall criminally short, churning out bland ‘guidance’ with the chief purpose of placating the public.

Whether driven by ignorance, arrogance or intransigence, the body and its counterparts within the sport ought to realise that sustained denial rather than safe and proper protocol will only cause further headache.