Headgear doesn't necessarily protect your brain from trauma when things are hitting against your head and shaking your brain around inside. Thats a big part of the reason boxers at the Olympics no longer wear headgear.
Is it a matter of time before heading is banned?
- Thread starter golden_blunder
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People who are not willing to take the risk... Like kids? You expect 10 year old children to make that decision?
I wouldn't trust most adults to make a rational decision either.
I understand that banning heading will basically kill football, I really do. But I do see the point for it. I can't understand why people are not going after fighting sports first but that's just me I guess.
I guess there is no perfect solution aside from banning heading but headgear would help. There are some new scrum caps in rugby now that pass through much stricter tests, like NPro and have very promising results. Personally I think, unless you change football completely, it's more about mitigating the issue because it's impossible to completely stop.
Most forms of headgear are designed primarily to protect against impact injuries damaging your skin/bones/skull.
I believe the long term damage from heading footballs consistently is from trauma to your brain rattling around inside your skull.
Hopefully someone can develop a headgear that helps reduce that trauma because I just can’t imagine football without heading.
hahaha... this game has been played for ages and the millennials are probably worried they'll lose their brains *laughing out loud*
Its either some amazing type of head gear or possibly some amazing way of treating the micro damage from heading the ball which accumulate over time. ome treatmeant administered after a game to all players. Long way in the future i would bet.
If thats the case then you gotta ban boxing, MMA, just about any combat sport out there.
The way I see it, just make everyone wear a Peter Cech helmet. Makes for a cool piece of merchandise too.
You dont have a game of football without heading.
The way I see it, just make everyone wear a Peter Cech helmet. Makes for a cool piece of merchandise too.
You dont have a game of football without heading.
Nowadays you have resistent and flexible materials. Sure you could create a featherweight helmet for footballers to protect them from consussions.
We can replace heading with a closed fist punching of the ball.
Headguards would unfortunately not solve the issue.
The basic science behind it is that there are essential proteins called tau proteins which are responsible for the structural stability of nerve fibres in the brain. Disruption to the chemical structure of these causes nerve fibre damage and is linked to various types of dementia like Alzheimer’s and fronto-temporal dementia.
The issue with heading-associated dementia is that repeated micro-impact to the head such as from heading a ball (or from head-head impact which was seen frequently in American Football and led to most of the early research on this) causes disruption of these tau proteins leading to another type of dementia called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
They’d have to outlaw all heading of the ball in the same way as they’ve outlawed handball and render it a sanctionable foul, if they wanted to properly address this.
Yes it's coming, as the science begins to detect the disease sooner, the FA wont be able to afford the costs of compensation.
I always get a headache when I head the ball. That's why I'm not a professional footballer. That and the fact that I like fish and chips.
I think the Americans take the Mickey out of the rest of us heading the ball. It does look goofy though.
Mickey and goofy I never meant that.
I don’t understand this viewpoint. Five a side and other smaller form versions of football have been around for ever without heading and are imo faster, better and more entertaining sports.
Of all the shit you could have said, you chose to say this. Wow.
I don't see heading every being banned, but what I can envision is much stricter rules regarding head to head or any kind of arm to head contact. I realize the conversation here is about the long term effects of heading a football, but it's always seemed to me the greater danger, and an aspect of the game that isn't essential to fair play of the game, is contact with the head of another player with arms or one's head. Accidental contact will happen, but a lot of the head contact we see isn't accidental and borderline unsporting. Whatever David Luiz's true intent, he went into Jimenez recklessly and the Laws should provide for a straight sending off in a reckless challenge to the head of an opposing player.
Whatever, people are less grateful with their life these days.
What the hell does that even mean?
Blaming the heading in football for the cause of the disease, which barely evidence from science around the world, just took the samples from UK, where it had a bad habit/environment in the 60's-70's, and yet They have 80 years of life expectancy. Can they be grateful for their life instead of coming for that "heading is bad for your health" conclusion?
You realize, I hope, that you can be grateful for an 80 year life AND recognize that science has proven that repeated hits to the head lead to brain damage. It’s not an “either-or” situation.
Signed,
Someone who suffered at least a dozen concussions playing American Football and completely expects to have some form of CTE affect him later in life
Denis Law, maybe the finest header of a ball I’ve ever seen, (and one of the most frequent) is a prostate cancer survivor but no sign of dementia. Look at all the old fashioned centre forwards, centre halves who frequently headed the ball over many years and there is no pattern. Poor old Nobby, short- arse that he was, wasnt much of a header of the ball. Nor was my mam, who died several years ago with it.
Bit of a difference playing on sodden, waterlogged pitches, heading a 5-ton casey that absorbed the water, than feather-weight balloons in use now.
Another nail in the coffin of football coming up, for sure. As long as we keep var, and just hold our ecstasy in for 5 minutes before celebrating a goal, we’ll be right. Becomes a bit of a pointless habit, continuing rule-changing.
Bit of a difference playing on sodden, waterlogged pitches, heading a 5-ton casey that absorbed the water, than feather-weight balloons in use now.
Another nail in the coffin of football coming up, for sure. As long as we keep var, and just hold our ecstasy in for 5 minutes before celebrating a goal, we’ll be right. Becomes a bit of a pointless habit, continuing rule-changing.
Wouldnt be a bad idea to keep a closer look at players who knowingly thrust their elbows out contesting headers. This has become more prevalent in the game. I understand there’s a legitimate “leverage” argument, having played the game but really, sometimes it just is not leverage. Not a new thing, but also commonplace in the game is “making a back” for some body contesting a header. Not a new thing but backing into a player with no intention of contesting a header (Vieira did this on RVN but got sent of for lashing out, even though it didn’t connect) is despicable. Just no reason for it yet it largely goes unpunished. Slightly straying from topic but really needs addressing if we are concerned about players’ well-being.
Got to love the “my nan smoked 80 a day and lived to 100” response to actual empirical scientific evidence.
I suffered a TBI once and was hurting for weeks with migraines. It's not to be taken lightly tbh, all humans react differently to various impacts. I know one thing, if heading is ever banned then football will be altered to a point of no return
The weight of a football hasnt changed in 40 years or more, also the coatings on the balls mean that for the last 40 years pro players who use a new ball every game have not had to deal with water logged balls. What is being found in other sports as well as football is there is a problem with mini concussions and the long term impacts. What we are likely to see is improvements in early detection and also treatment. In the meantime banning kids and teenagers from heading the ball is prudent and learning to head the ball correctly isnt a problem as a technique to learn once one has become an adult.
Just because you can name isolated famous names who were fine doesnt actually fit with whats starting to be found. Its a serious problem that needs resolving, its the type of problem thats hard to come to terms with because there is generally very little of immediate visible damage to cause concern, sort of like climate change, nothing that clear day to day but over longer periods of time the problems appear.
Flippant dismissal of the problem is a worry. Also another thing to consider, more people play football now than ever before and playing for longer, I have only recently stopped playing and im hitting 60 soon. This means potentially more people will have problems in later life, in 40-50 years from now what might we see if we ignore this or dismiss it.
i addressed this point : “waterlogged....” I understand that the weight of the ball is actually regulated but you completely/ deliberately miss the point
not remotely isolated, either in positive (Law + countless others) or negative (Nobby, Fitzpatrick my mother etc, etc, etc)
I will certainly dismiss, flippantly or not, until we have evidence, which we are currently, sorely lacking. If incontrovertible evidence is found then yes, we have an issue.
whatever, the game is already suffering from chronic sanitisation, having been hijacked by online football managers who consider themselves “supporters”, soulless all seater stadiums, Var, cheating players, agents, corrupt officials and no heading. We’ll have the “save the metatarsal“ brigade out next, horrified at the prospect of kicking the ball. Best stay at home, watch a virtual game as a virtual supporter. You’ll still have to wait 5 minutes before you can celebrate a goal. You’ll deserve what you get.
People who do fighting sports know the risks, just like anyone who plays football now. So either do it or be safe and don’t. Life is all about choices and risk. You can educate people, but why the need to ban anything that may or may not affect them.
Americans know all about being “goofy”
Same with drugs. You do know the risks but you make a choice. It's not that simple. We are constantly preventing people from being able to make a choice that endangers them.
Interesting viewpoint, you’re a genuine libertarian. How far does your argument go? What about the sale of alcohol to minors? Distribution of class A drugs?
I take it you’d be in favour of legalising all of the above since through appropriate education you can allow people to make their own choices and hope it’s the sensible one?
I think they will ban heading in training or use some sort of fly away type product to soften the impact. Heading in match is quite rare on a per player basis so they should continue with that.
It would be seriously strange to stop heading the ball.
An alternative would be for players to play with lightweight head guards to soften the impact of the balls.
Failing this I’m not sure what else they could do maybe everyone is allowed to use their hands on corners, a sea of hands at the ready to slap in a corner.
It would be seriously strange to stop heading the ball.
An alternative would be for players to play with lightweight head guards to soften the impact of the balls.
Failing this I’m not sure what else they could do maybe everyone is allowed to use their hands on corners, a sea of hands at the ready to slap in a corner.
Statistically wise dementia effects around 20 percent of people over the age of 80 years old, if you told me I would have a glittering sports career and get dementia at the age of 70.
I would definitely take that, life is about choices.
Taking heading out of the game completely would be stupid in my eyes.
I would definitely take that, life is about choices.
Taking heading out of the game completely would be stupid in my eyes.
Come on man, that’s not the same at all. Mountain climbing, rafting, bmx, boxing, I could list literally dozens of extremely dangerous sports that people chose to partake in, and that’s before even mentioning things like base jumping.
There’s no question the sport of rugby, and American Football have much higher long term risks.
Is playing these sports similar to becoming a young alcoholic, or drug addict and becoming a strain on your family and society for a lifetime? The answer is obviously, no, feck no.
You know what,
there is evidence through out many sports and also in football. Its really really simple actually do some fecking research. Just spend an evening or two with Google and do some fecking research. Rugby, Boxing, Gridiron, football, Ice Hockey..... multiple studies over many years.
Do some feckING research, if you had you wouldnt be flippantly dismissing it.
Its not sorely missing. "sports concussion studies" about 4,550,000 results on Google
That‘s not accurate at all. The percentage of GDP expended on drug/alcohol care for addicts+the management of drug/alcohol induced chronic disease is a drop in the ocean compared to the huge chunk of GDP every western nation spends annually on caring for and supporting elderly patients with dementia, and treating their associated chronic disease.
If you need any proof of this, walk into your local hospital and do a quick headcount of how many elderly inpatients with dementia there are. They’ll be anywhere around 60-80% of the total, from my experience of having worked in that setting for decades.
So if you’re running with the ‘drain on society and your family’ argument then legalising all drugs and alcohol and turning the same resources towards fighting dementia would save you a hell of a lot more money and effort in the longterm as a society.
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When did I advocate for making things that are illegal to be made legal? Don’t think I appreciate how you completely changed what I posted into some radical left wing agenda kinda thing! Playing competitive sports is completely legal.
Forcing people to comply with being wrapped in cotton wool for their entire life isn’t going to go down well in my point of view.
Surely it’s all about designing a ball to reduce the risk? They won’t ban heading.
And yet another one.... playing football is legal. I did not advocate for changing any law.
As for the we whom are constantly preventing people being endangered? Who is this we? Is it the same we who are feckin up the only planet we can live on? Or another we who have unlimited supply of cotton wool to wrap everyone up in?