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Mike Bailey made 436 appearances for the Wolves and helped them win the League Cup in 1974
Research on dementia “long ago”, according to a group of former players who say they are “aware of several former players” who have died from the condition.
The Wolves Former Players Association (WFPA) spoke after former club captain Mike Bailey was diagnosed with dementia.
The WFPA said the investigation was “very necessary to safeguard the health of footballers in the future.”
Studies have linked dementia in players to head balls.
However, definitive evidence would require a long-term study.
Bailey’s family has released the 78-year-old’s diagnosis “to highlight ongoing problems and support research on the number of former footballers with dementia.”
The Professional Soccer Players Association (PFA) recently announced a new task force to further examine the topic of brain injury diseases in soccer.
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The players’ union has been accused of not doing enough by former Blackburn forward Chris Sutton and the families of two former England internationals who had dementia before they died.
Criticisms of the PFA come from Dawn Astle, whose father Jeff played for West Brom, and John Stiles, whose father Nobby was part of England’s 1966 World Cup winning team.
Sutton has also criticized the union after his father, a former soccer player, was diagnosed with dementia.
Former Wolves forward John Richards, a WFPA member who played alongside Bailey, said: “The Wolves Former Players Association fully supports all the work that the likes of Dawn Astle and so many others do to encourage more research on the illness.
Mike also inspires us once again that he and the family have decided to make the courageous decision to go public with this diagnosis, in hopes of further highlighting the issue at a time when so many former soccer players are affected by this terrible disease. . “
The PFA announced its Neurodegenerative Diseases Task Force (NDWG) last week, with plans to consult Sutton and Dawn Astle.
Sutton, however, has told BBC Sport that he “has no plans to join the task force and does not want to be associated with the PFA in its current form.”
The PFA said it would continue to fund Dr. Willie Stewart’s research on the topic after the neuropathologist discovered last year that former footballers were two to five times more likely to die from degenerative brain diseases.
And he has also called for the training course to be reduced to protect current players while there is a potential link between the header and long-term brain injury.
Stewart discovered that Astle died in 2002, at age 59, of a brain condition normally related to boxers, and that it was caused by head balls.
Stiles, who passed away last month at age 78, is one of five members of England’s World Cup-winning team to have had dementia.
His fellow England World Cup winner and Manchester United legend Sir Bobby Charlton has also been diagnosed with dementia and Charlton’s brother Jack also suffered from it before his death in July.
Lobos coach Nuno Espirito Santo, asked on Friday about the relationship between heading balls and dementia, said: “It’s a very difficult situation because games require heading, so we have to do it.” It is something that should be more. studies so that we can have a better opinion, but I see a very difficult situation, because even in youth, it is part of the game. “So how can you take a part out of the game? But I can’t ignore that and if that’s the case, we have to do something.”
Source: bbc.com
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