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Sir Geoff Hurst on the ‘enormous amount of time’ invested in training
Headshots in training should be stopped if they are shown to be related to dementia, says West Brom boss Slaven Bilic.
World Cup winner Sir Geoff Hurst said leading practice is “probably more damaging” for players than it is in games.
The players’ union, the Association of Professional Footballers, is creating a task force to further examine the topic of brain injuries in soccer.
“I don’t know what solution they are going to find,” Bilic said.
“If they find out through research that heading the ball 10 times during training is going to give you dementia, then we’re going to stop it.
“For me, the best thing is that they are talking and acknowledging.”
A report published in 2019 found that former professional soccer players are three and a half times more likely than the general population to die of dementia.
The introduction of a task force comes amid criticism from the family of Hurst’s England teammate, 1966 World Cup winner Nobby Stiles.
Stiles’ family said soccer needs to “address the scandal” of dementia in soccer.
The former Manchester United and England midfielder passed away in October, aged 78, after suffering from dementia and prostate cancer.
Sir Bobby Charlton, 83, has also been diagnosed with dementia, making him the fifth member of England’s World Cup winning team to be diagnosed with a brain injury syndrome.
Bilic added that his players will not stop heading the ball in training as it is and that preventing it in games would mean that “it is no longer football.”
Aston Villa head coach Dean Smith said “no stone should be left unturned” in the investigation.
Smith’s father Ron, who was not a professional footballer, had dementia and died after contracting coronavirus in March.
“It’s one of the hardest things to go through, seeing parents suffer from dementia,” Smith said.
“We need to make sure there is no stone left unturned to find out if there is indeed a correlation between heading a soccer ball and dementia.”
“Until we get that, it’s very difficult to change the game.”
Neuropathologist Willie Stewart, who conducted the research commissioned by the PFA and Football Association, said a “level of evidence” linking the title to dementia “beyond a reasonable doubt” may not be possible due to the time it takes symptoms develop.
“Risk is something you get in your 20s and the disease is in your 60s or 70s, so it’s difficult how to put these two together,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“On the balance of probabilities, a different level of evidence, there is more than enough evidence now to say that head and head injuries are the problem.
“So we try to get rid of that as much as possible, get rid of that in training, it won’t affect the game of the weekend.”
Dr. Vincent Gouttebarge, medical director of the Fifpro Global Players Union, said “we need to have stronger evidence” before soccer can introduce training restrictions at the professional level.
Former England captain Wayne Rooney said “something clearly needs to change” to prevent the “next generation of players” from dying of dementia.
11-year-olds cannot learn to direct soccer balls during training sessions in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Similar rules have been in effect in the United States since 2015.
Rooney said he saw the kids adjust to not being allowed to head the ball when he played in the United States for DC United and went to watch his 11-year-old son Kai play.
“If the ball went to their heads, they would walk away and let it run, so maybe that’s something that could happen on a more regular basis here,” added Rooney, interim manager for Derby County.
Chelsea manager Frank Lampard also said football has to “act now to make sure we are not sitting on the problem.”
“I fully support any move that deepens it for players of the past, present and future,” he added.
Former West Brom and England striker Jeff Astle developed dementia and died in 2002 at the age of 59.
Source: bbc.com
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