The Telegraph: More than 60 former players such as Shearer and Keegan have called for a new mechanism to deal with player dementia

According to the Daily Telegraph, more than 60 former players such as Reinkel, Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer, Stewart Pierce, Terry Butcher, Dave Watson and other former players appealed to the football authorities to formulate new solutions to the crisis of dementia among English football players as soon as possible.

In a joint statement, some former players backed the charity Head for Change, urging preventive and protective measures, including a protection fund for the football industry, to help retired players cope with brain diseases that are nearly four times more common in their careers than other diseases. These players also include Sonnes, Micah Richards, Martin Keion, Matt Letisier, Viv Anderson, Ray Palo, Gary Parrest and Emile Husky. Neuropathologist Dr. Willie Stewart, who has demonstrated the link between football and dementia, also hopes to study how to proactively balance the risk of dementia in retired players between the ages of 30 and 70, as well as train active players, coaches, parents, and children.

An application to identify dementia in football as an industrial disease is currently under consideration by the Industrial Diseases Advisory Committee, which requires evidence that one disease is at least twice as prevalent in a particular occupation as it is in other cases. Research from the University of Glasgow found that former professional players were 3.5 times more likely to die from neurological diseases than the average person, and that proportion did not decline among nearly 8,000 footballers in the 1930s and 1990s.

The PFA, the association of professional footballers, said almost two years ago that it supported an approach to rolling out an industry-wide care fund, like the one for former American soccer players with neurodegenerative diseases, but the UK has not yet set up such a fund.

Dr Judith Gates, chairman and co-founder of Head for Change, urged young players to understand the risk of dementia and develop new guidelines to limit headers in training. Last month, a report from the British Parliament condemned the UK sports community for making up its own mind on the issue of serious brain injuries and strongly condemned the FA's failure to resolve the football dementia crisis more quickly in its warnings 20 years ago. It also accused the Health and Safety Executive Board HSE of dereliction of duty and had irresponsible governing bodies oversee the welfare of players. The FA has issued new guidance this season, recommending that grassroots football train no more than 10 headers per week and professional players have up to 10 high-intensity headers, including long-range headers, corner headers and free-kick headers.

The Daily Telegraph launched the "Tackle Dementia in Football" campaign in 2016 and revealed last week that further football dementia research funded by the FA and PFA had been delayed in order to coordinate priorities with FIFA, UEFA and the Premier League.

（Eagle）